Cool News
James Cameron To Explore The Ocean Of Pandora In AVATAR 2!
Beaks here...
With the AVATAR Blu-ray/DVD release coming this Thursday, James Cameron sat down with the L.A. Times' "Hero Complex" blog to talk about the film's ongoing cultural influence, whether there will be a theatrical rerelease (there will, in August, with an additional six-minutes of material), and how he'll make the return trip to Pandora unique.
The last bit of information is particularly interesting, and it should come as no surprise that Cameron plans to go underwater in AVATAR 2. Here's the key excerpt...
We created a broad canvas for the environment of film. That’s not just on Pandora, but throughout the Alpha Centauri AB system. And we expand out across that system and incorporate more into the story – not necessarily in the second film, but more toward a third film. I’ve already announced this, so I might as well say it: Part of my focus in the second film is in creating a different environment – a different setting within Pandora. And I’m going to be focusing on the ocean on Pandora, which will be equally rich and diverse and crazy and imaginative, but it just won’t be a rain forest. I’m not saying we won’t see what we’ve already seen; we’ll see more of that as well.
Cameron also states that he'd like to make the sequel in half the time at half the price, but will settle for reducing both by twenty-five percent. Good luck with that.
-
+ Expand All
-
First?
-
Sorry. Just had to say it.
-
are you 5 years old?
-
Abyss Boogaloo.. hahahaha
-
I'm pretty sure they always come first as well- though rarely in the company of another person.
-
Nobody ever told me.
-
I kid, I kid. Cameron's best movies that he made are sequels, and some of the best sequels ever made in history. Bring on Avatar 2 because he has an interesting way of making a sequel that flips the previous movie on it's head.
-
I'd like to explore them for 2 3/4 hours. Would save a lot of cash too.
-
Visually Avatar was awesome, but I felt like the script was a horrible rehash of fucked out cliche "man is bad" bullshit. Make this one original and not just the Abyss 2 Cameron. Your better than that
-
. . . The kelp of life.
-
When aliens (humans) want to land on a planet unnoticed....they go to the ocean. So the humans will plan on landing deep in the ocean depths and drilling down there....
-
Fuckin' Gungans.
-
I want my eyes fucked underwater!
-
IN SPACE
-
That, and the characters. The only reason I didn't pan the movie after I first saw it was because I felt this was just the beginning. But as the first movies of trilogies goes, Star Wars this ain't. No sense of surprise, or suspense. Imax 3D saved this movie.
-
if you're in line for doughnuts or a rollercoaster.
-
Must be mindblowing
-
So I'm on board. I loved Avatar and I would love to explore more of that world.
-
I hope this does not have that. Also, every submersible vehicle must have big fuckin' knives to stab at the shark/ray/squid hybrids this movie will undeniably have.
-
It was a simple story for sure. It was a rehash of what we have seen previously for sure. But while it was a simple story, it managed to connect to many people. And while it did that, it also had some outstanding 3D/Visual Effects... So why the hate? Cameron is at least still trying to do different things while many of his peers have fallen off. And yeah so the fuck what if he is rumored (cause none of these hating bitches who say he has one know him) to have an ego. He has made some of the biggest influential action films of our times... So if he is arrogant about his work and thinks his shit is the best, so fucking be it.
-
In it's pixellated, contrasty, saturated, mocapped synthetic glory!
-
*crosses fingers*
-
The only reason this *isn't* a surprise is because we know of Cameron's love affair with the ocean. However, it IS a surprise bc I think many of us thought sequels may involve other planets, other aliens, maybe even some of the shithole Earth has become. That being said, however, I can't wait to see what lies beneath Pandora's oceans.
-
I agree with Octaveaeon, if it wasn't for 3D AVATAR wouldn't have made so much bank. It would have been just another pretty movie with a very predictable plot. It was like a cake with 6 thick layers of icing. But the story was really weak for something that looked nice. So hopefully Cameron will put more time in the story and not so much in visuals.
My 2 cent for the title: SWIMMING WITH THUNDERSMURFS -
"Cameron's best movies that he made are sequels, and some of the best sequels ever made in history"
Piranha 2 - not good.
Aliens - good.
T2 - not good -
Apr 20, 2010 8:04:10 PM CDT
Avatar II - Fucking Your Eyeballs One More Time
by allpowerfulwizardofoz
-
Agreed. Except T2 is more of a remake (for audiences that don't watch b-movies and didn't catch the first one) than a sequel.
-
Apr 20, 2010 8:04:50 PM CDT
The pros and cons of 'first'=more interesting than this sequel
by yoyodynepropulsionsystems
Fuck Avatar.
-
Include Jar Jar please!
-
Now THAT'S a game changer!...I'm in!
-
Apr 20, 2010 8:07:21 PM CDT
"T2: not good" = "I'm a fucking idiot of a reject of a moron"
by manifestchaos
Die. Honestly, die.
-
To store all his faberge eggs in.
-
they want to be invaded and physically harmed.
-
Yes. The final scene where the Terminator gave a thumbs up while melting in liquid metal had me gagging in my own tears. The imagery kept haunting me, couldn't sleep for weeks.
-
I'd like to see him make that. Or metal gear solid
-
Avatar was a 3D/FX piece of shit.
Make the horror end.
Or at least hire someone who can write a decent script. -
No Stephen Lang = my ass planted elsewhere. Eye candy aside, he was the only good thing about the first movie. THAT and when Quaritch & Co. blew up Home Tree. Gentrification at its finest.
-
Love it.
-
Phase 1: nuke all the green
Phase 2: hunt down Navi for experiments
Phase 3: excavate whatever
-
It's a moronic movie for children that pisses on the metaphysics of the original film.
The Terminator: lean, mean, smart, sad action movie set in a single timeline universe where the future can never be changed (that's the ENTIRE POINT of the movie).
T2: flabby, kid-centric, corny, sentimental action movie set in a multiple timeline universe where - hey! - we can change the future! There's no fate but what we make for ourselves!
Minor contradiction there...
Of course, if you're very stupid, you won't have noticed and/or won't care that a movie breaks its own rules in the most fundamental manner. And the world is full of stupid people. -
Isn't it customary to link to the source article? Did I miss it?
-
How Pandora was just like earth, but with genetic manipulation, gene therapy, and selective breeding humans become one with nature and turned into Pandorans. The Titanic rises and we watch an action adventure on the evils of humanity (especially white male Americans)and how the great peoples of Pandora turn the Titanic into a great living ship that is one with nature while blowing the shit out of white male Americans...I mean humans.
Or we could just call it Avatar 2: Cameron's Diatribe. -
come on who needs more Avatar..
-
Chairs wired to give people electric shocks, fog machines, water dripping for the ceiling, air guns...lets make it physical.
-
Is it the only way to be sure?
-
pity :(
-
somewhere in China or Japan,i dont remember exactly.i read about it recently.
-
Write a good story first, Jim. You already failed with the original film.
-
Screw you haters !
More POWER to the first posters, go guys GO ! -
Can't wait until the set reports start rolling in. I'm curious to see which actor/actress almost drowns in another Cameron underwater film!
-
going to make the sequel about Pandora's Ocean.Then he said that we are going to visit other planets.Then he said he is going to make the Dive instead of Avatar2,now he is saying again that it is about the Ocean.
In other words,nothing has been finalized yet,it wont surprise me if Cameron tomorrow will be talking about Alita as his next project. -
Residual radiation big problem. Hit the moon with a massive biological weapon such as a planet wide defoliant. It kills the whole plant mother aspect which links the Navi's. Herbivores die off, which then causes the carnivores and omnivores to die off. No lingering radiation, no resistance which makes easy mining.
-
However, there is the Puppet Show 4D at Disney's MGM Studios in Florida using the same techniques.
-
. . . don't hate Avatar as much as you let on. No way . . .
-
I really dug Avatar, even though I thought it had a weak spot here and there. Probably wait for the eventual even LONGER DVD/Blu-Ray release rather than going back to the IMAX for a third time (even with the six minutes). Glad to hear he's got some other ideas for the sequels, though. Visiting the ocean and the surrounding system both sound interesting to me. Hope he can get at least three of them out there (in total). But if they take as long as this one did, I'll happy with one sequel. Plus, you've got to imagine the dude wants to work on some other stuff in there. Maybe he can do both at the same time, considering how much of Avatar is post production work.
-
count me in :P
-
I think that the REAL reason that people here hate Avatar is because it was a billion times better than the three Star Wars prequels and that latest Indiana Jones combined. So sad. :(
-
And fuck all the Avatar haters, who are crying about the Democrats beating Palin. Have a tissue. Wankers.
-
Did your crack pipe just explode in your face?
-
that the flora in Pandora's jungle was made to mimic the underwater life in trenches and such? Can we expect pine trees and cacti underwater, then?
-
...I still enjoyed the hell out of it and welcome a good looking, entertaining, if not poorly-scripted, sequel! "Yea" for pretty things!
-
fail! Fail! FAIL! ;-p
-
Cameron must be a fan of Kevin Costner. First he does Dances with Wolves on an alien planet and now Waterworld. The third movie should be based on Bodyguard
-
Probably the tens of millions of non-movie nerds who fucking loved it.
-
http://tinyurl.com/y6xvcgt
-
The team visits a planet in the system in which the inhabitants suffer from severe learning disabilities. The movie title: AVATARD!!! LOL!!!
-
accept it haters
-
Don't appreciate being preached at. Yes, great visuals, pacing excellent, classic story line of good versus evil with nothing leading to a confusion of who the bad guys really are, and a happy ending. The draw back is that it stereotyped (at best) white male Americans (at worst, race and gender bashing). The corporate leader is a weaselly white male American (calling the Navi monkeys no less), the evil military leader is a white male SOUTHERN American, and all the key scenes in which a Navi dies is at the hands of white male Americans. So either Cameron is just a racist in his hiring practices, or he was trying to make a statement that you can't trust white male Americans (Cameron himself is Canadian and therefore a good guy). Yet the film was still good old fashion escapism if you just ignored the slap in the face story that Cameron was giving the audience. Of course Cameron has already stated in numerous interviews that he was calling anyone who disagrees with him idiots, which makes him one self righteous pompous ass, but still a good (not great) film maker.
-
Apr 20, 2010 8:57:52 PM CDT
We're going to fight the indians over precious octopus vagina!!!
by slimbutnotreally
I hope we get a new general who has a scar so you know hes evil...because its so hard to tell when they dont have scars!!!!
-
Apr 20, 2010 8:59:09 PM CDT
Will a human have sex with a blue shark monster this time?
by slimbutnotreally
I hope so!
-
Absolutely correct, it was better than the SW prequels and the last Indiana Jones; still, that isn't saying much as most everything was better than the last Indiana Jones film (except maybe Howard the Duck and Battlefield Earth).
-
They shall save the erfs.
-
Drown all the morons that actually think there was one original thing about that POS.
-
that you saw the movie but your blind patriotism didnt let you understand it.i pity you.
-
end of line.now i am going to get me some sleep.cheerio.
-
I have, and I was surprised by how much more green it looked than what I saw in the IMAX theater. I never got the chance to check it in a regular 2D theater. And it's not like the Na'vi or any of the creatures and bioluminescence is green. All that looks just like it did in the theater. But in general, across the entire color spectrum in the scenes I just noticed far more green.
-
You're not funny. Next time pay attention to the story instead of looking for Navi boob shots.
-
I've seen 1000 movies that look and feel just like it. Please notice the sarcasm dripping from this post.
-
"Xenophobic". By you're logic, Cameron would be racist against himself. But hating white Americans is xenophobic.Not trying to be a grammar nazi, just trying to help.
-
I don't need pity from the pathetic.
-
Actually, I know a few of the people I saw it with quite enjoyed the message. A couple of them (quite a bit older than the normal Avatar demographic) commented that it was nice that it didn't beat you over the head about it. Because it really didn't, unless that's what you WANTED to get from the experience. There was plenty of other stuff going on, but the "anti" people just want to focus on that (for whatever reason).
-
Just because no other movie has a big blue cat walking around in it does NOT make Avatar original. Any idiot can make bad creature design. Hell, I could make a big pink talking dildo a main character and would you claim that I was being original? IT's one thing to be original, it's another to be creative. Avatar sucks cock.
-
It's just a rehash of a lot of movies that didn't make as much money. Most morons never saw those movies...anyone with half a brain (or more) would have seen those movies and know how fucking awful Avatar is.
-
that thought Avatar blew chunks. I have no desire to buy the DVD and I sure as hell won't be seeing any more tree hugger inspired sequels. It's not even the tree hugger part that was so bad it's just that the environmentalism took center stage and the story took a back seat. Screw that! I go to movies for entertainment, not to be lectured. James Cameron hasn't made a good movie since Terminator 2.
-
Going to disagree with the use of xenophobic, as it is a fear of things that are alien. Using it in this movie context might lead to confusion, fear of the Navi or fear the humans. Thanks for the vocabulary lesson, seriously thank you.
-
Fucking ridiculous to even include that. You also said Terminator 2 wasn't good so basically you should be ignored forever. Notice how the movie has 98% on Rotten Tomatoes? Not good movies get that rating often, right?
-
pathetic you are and you look.how do you explain the fact that a lot of the usa marines loved the message of the film? maybe because that they understand that the message of the film is not about race but about the STRONG PREY ON THE WEAK? and historically it is the white people that are the strong who have fucked up the weak? dont believe me? ask the indians in your coutnry.there are still indians there right?
-
Apr 20, 2010 9:14:06 PM CDT
Notice how Terminator 2 is on every single best sequel list?
by tall_boy66
But some douche named Kaitain doesn't like it. And his opinion is important. Right.
-
How about Cameron doing something completely different?
-
is in the character design and the sheer amount of STUFF poured into the world's design. Yes, the story has been done to death and is fairly predictable, but that doesn't mean it's fucking evil or terrible. It's not a bad message to get across (Hug a tree.). I find it silly people can say they like film and all they give a shit about is all about how original the story is. It's a visual medium, fer crissakes! You're supposed to discount every single visual thing ever? Like, really?
-
I felt that it was very heavy handed and cliche. It was a message that had been said a million times before by more eloquent people. I just wanted to be blown away by a fun sci-fi fantasy. While I was entertained, I kept getting smacked in the face with stuff that I've heard before and already agree with. Didn't need that. Still liked the look of the movie though.So, xenophobic doesn't work, and racist implies a hatred of all caucasians, what would be the right term, then?
-
If you actually saw Avatar in a theater (which I doubt) you would know full well that there has never been anything that looks remotely like it. I believe I admitted up above that film has faults - it's not perfect. But it's incredibly original and beautiful to look at. And I refuse to be as jaded and cynical as the people who can't get past whatever hangups they have to just enjoy it on that front. How many "truly original films" are released each year according to your stringent standards? I would guess absolutely none.
-
is because they were expecting Aliens 2.and i am not the one who says this but Cameron himself.
-
Because every time I do, except once in 1997, I am entertained like a muthafucka.
-
Geek high five!
-
...I totally disagree. It was not heavy handed and preachy at all - it's just what the film is about. If you want to get your panties in a bunch and take offense because the film is pro-environment, that's on you. But you're just straight wrong about it being preachy. Micheal Moore is preachy. An Inconvenient Truth is preachy. Avatar, not so much.
-
when I found it mediocre at best. I think the dialogue was the worst part for me, otherwise I enjoyed it for what its worth. I think people really hate on it for the wrong reasons, and will always make the Dances With Wolves comparison. So it's derivitive, big fuckin' deal. A lot of movies/stories are. Especially movies/stories people love and conveniently forget about, such as STAR WARS and THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Being derivative never stopped anyone from liking those before. So that argument just doesn't hold any water for me. When I made this point to a friend of mine she could only respond by saying " Well, James Camerons ego alone keeps me from enjoying his movies!", as if she fuckin' knows the guy!
-
Like the westerns of old, where the US Calvary comes in and kills the evil Indians. The message was that white male Americans were the good guys, and they weren't. The opposite holds in Avatar. Cameron is basically stating that white male Americans are evil and will continue to be evil in the future, he creates the old western in reverse and that just doesn't make it right. Now while some naysayers say they won't see the sequel, I will. Because the effects were great, the visualization was excellent, and I can escape for a little bit. But please stop making excuses for Cameron when he comes out in the press, on Oprah no less, and says the corporations are evil and portrays are corporations are run by white male Americans. It was different in Aliens, there he spread the evil. Welyand-Yutani, a European and Asia name, with male and female corporate leaders (still all white) and while the corporation was evil the military going in was at best the good guys and at worst just a neutral third party.
-
wins the Oscar. Shit.
-
I hate the blue thundersmurf designs but at least the story will be better. It can't possibly be any worse than that dreck. Hopefully Cameron listens to the criticisms of the first film and doesn't blow off us whiners just because it made 10 billion dollars.
-
The story was good vs bad with the cool-looking less-advanced species as the good guys. And the action scenes were amazing. Haters just can't deal with fun. Also, about T2, don't complain that it ruins T1's timeline. The whole point was to contradict the original. There are only 2 kinds of time travel movies (you can change things or you can't). Cameron made both of them and after that the franchise was done. You can't follow T2 because the timelines are ruined and that's why Cameron has always said there was nothing for him to go back to.
-
Yes, the idea of controlling a remote body has been done before, but not that often in film and not quite like this in this particular way. There is the Matrix where you plug into a chair and then you're in the Matrix, but you're still you. The alien body piloted by humans thing may have been around before, but not quite done in this particular way. It's the DETAILS, people. Details!
-
First, I have never read or heard of any story about US marines loving Avatar because it was a story about the strong preying on the weak, and that would just be sick. Second, look in a mirror and you'll see a person who is xenophobic. Pathetic.
-
considering that a handful of those Americans formed an insurrection I wouldn't agree that the message was all white male Americans are bad. Many of us protested the wars but were ignored by the power elite. The scum bags in power, the richest upper class of society, are pure evil, true.
-
Not sure. I was trying to limit the hatred to only white male Americans. Not include everyone who is white or white and male. I do agree with you, the movie did blow me away. You don't need to be a liberal or conservative to enjoy Avatar.
-
and the story will suck.It will also make mega coin.
-
you've seen this story played out a thousand times. yaaaaaawwwwwwnnn. And I'm not even that old. It must have been excrutiating for the old timers! For the kiddies I guess they ate it up.
-
Historically, I believe the Huns are probably the best example of the strong preying on the weak. I'm half Native American by the way, so I believe I'm being pretty objective about that.
-
You're a real bright bulb, aren'tcha? Avatar was preachier than WALL-E, which was preachy as fuck. It's a condescending movie, yes it's beautiful and that's precisely why everyone is so pissed off that the story is hackneyed, the characters are unidimensional cliches, and the message is about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the nutsack: for a movie that looked that good, it should have been a GOOD MOVIE. It WASN'T. It was a horrible, predictable, laundry-list-of-shopworn-cliches of a movie that LOOKED ABSOLUTELY STUNNING. And frankly all the work that went into those visual effects (which BTW was NOT done by James Cameron, it was merely done by experts at his behest because he controls the money) deserved much better!!
-
the 'mourning' motif is awesome, the opening track is virtuosic, and the 'world music' (African-inspired tribal yada yada) representing the Navi was another cliche but it was forgivable because the music was so well done overall.Again, it deserved a much better underlying film to make it worthwhile, unfortunately for the apologists but that's the truth.
-
I'm sure the artists are perfectly fine with having billions of people see their work, even though the story was pretty weak. It's not like they created Jar-Jar. That, I'd be ashamed of.
-
Terminator 2 was one of the most notable exceptions though
-
I often think the same thing, for films of much lower quality. Like 2012. God. What a waste of stunning effects.
-
I don't recall if it came out before or at the same time, or maybe just after. But it supports Tall_Boy66 to some degree as in Avatar the pilot needs to a biologic construct that may look physically similar to humans but functions much differently.
-
It was not "preachy", and neither was WALL-E. They had a MESSAGE. Neither one of them have characters standing on screen for minutes at a time PREACHING at you. Telling you want to think or feel. Both of them very simply present you with a MESSAGE and allow you to agree or disagree. Avatar can't have terrible, simple dialogue and be PREACHY at the same time. It just doesn't make any sense. I wish people could just get this straight. And again, I already admitted Avatar has a message. It's pro-environment, oooooo! Terrible! And it does it without even showing you a burnt out wasteland of an Earth. TOTALLY unoriginal! lol Bah! I'ma go watch the Lakers game. Go Lakers!
-
...is like pointing out that each Pixar movie is NOT created by it's individual director. Well, DUH!!!! It is their ideas and they're in control of them. In Cameron's case it was also his character, creature and set designs being realized by programmers before he gave final approval.
-
even the ancient Greeks preyed on the weak.Imperialism is universal and eternal.thats the point of the film,thats why the actors of the Navi are multi-national and the Navi are based on multi-cultures.
-
Sorry about the blank post. "Preachy" is a bit strong, "message" is more on track. But we're arguing on vocabulary and not points with it.
-
anymore...
Most of what they spew is vitriol. They can't even explain why the derivative Avatar was somehow more derivative than the derivative Star Wars. Remember kids, Star Wars and what came after were not actually particularly original!
Sure, they were fun, but not original. Avatar is the same as Star Wars, it was just produced in the internet age so a lot more people with nothing particularly interesting going on in their lives are able to slag it off! You'd have done exactly the same thing to Star Wars had the internet existed - oh wait! YOU DID!!! The prequels are seen the way they are by haters because they decided they didn't want to like them. You piss on Jar Jar - you'd have done that to C-3PO. Oh wait - YOU DID!!!
I could go on and on about the Star Wars/Avatar links in internet hate for days, but it's pointless because you children raised on the internet will continue to hate things for no particularly good reason beyond the fact that you are capable of doing so.
To be honest, I can't wait to see what is next in the Avatar Universe, but that's because I like movies - ALL MOVIES. Some are worse than others, but movies are amazing! You internet kids don't like movies - it makes me wonder why you even come to a site like this - you like bitching about things, and that doesn't help anyone, anywhere, anytime. It just makes you feel like a big person. And you probably are, sitting there in your dressing gown and underpants... -
They're the same people who think movies like Underworld are good.
-
I just spewed a little coffee out my nose.
-
Apr 20, 2010 9:52:02 PM CDT
Oceanlizard i have read this in multiple news sites dont worry
by ominus
and even from some marines themselves who wrote about this film in some sites.
and its not strange that they like it because of the message.you know why? the usa marines are brain-washed to believe that what they are doing in Iraq etc is an effort to help the weak people of those countries to get rid of their strong rulers.They relate to the marine Jake who is the most faithful marine because he stays to the values he was taught in the army.Thats why the usa marines love the film.get it? now fuck off. -
thank you
-
of when a great idea is destroyed in a bad film.
-
I see your point and I totally agree. I think I may have misunderstood where you were coming from at first. Sorry if I came off sounding like a dick.
As a person of mixed ethnicity I see all this talk of racism/xenophobia from two different points of view. Seems like white people always get the finger pointed at them first, at least in America, when if you consider everything in a historical perspective, pretty much everyone has had there turn being the racist/xenophobic bad guy. -
Word buddy! Word!
-
crazy ass fish life, looks like i'll be remaining a pothead for another decade
-
Making up stories. I took a look, Googled, to see these stories about US Marines liking Avatar. Imagine my surprise when the listings comeback of Marines condemning Avatar. And you didn't like what you saw in the mirror did you?
-
It's not like water would look any different on another planet. One of the main reasons why I still haven't seen Avatar is because I'm turned off by greenscreen movies.
-
Take that
-
That's a legit concern, but it doesn't exist with Avatar (imo). I found the green screen work to be a MAJOR problem with the SW prequels. Avatar looks nothing like that.
-
Lovers hating Haters. Doesn't make much since, oh well. Looking forward to the Piranha 3D talkback.
-
4D! It's possible
-
Or one with Chinese sub-titles? Can anyone help me out here?
-
Three beers and it looks good.
-
"You also said Terminator 2 wasn't good so basically you should be ignored forever. Notice how the movie has 98% on Rotten Tomatoes?"
98% of the world's population don't understand the incompatibility of The Terminator and T2. I guess it's not that easy to conceive of history as a static 4D structure, which one has to do to get what is happening in The Terminator. People's instinct is that everyone has free will and that traveling back in time always gives you the power to alter the future. The Terminator shows us a narrative universe in which this is NOT the case: free will as intuitively conceived does not exist, and in addition, your standard way of conceiving of cause and effect requiring a left-to-right temporal order goes out of the window. However, T2 DOES give us those two things: intuitive free will, and, upon close examination, intuitive causality (the first version of 2029 has to happen before the second version of 1994 can; this is categorically not the logic that applies in the original film, where 2029 does NOT have to occur once before the 1984 with Reese and the cyborg can take place. Instead, all events in history exist simultaneously, and "the present" is nothing but a subjective point of view). But they simply don't sit alongside the rules established in the first movie.
In effect, T2 is a sequel to a popular, intuitive misunderstanding of the original film. To this day, many (most?) people think that at the end of The Terminator, we're witnessing a second version of history, but one in which (thankfully) John Connor is still going to be born. Heck, some people even think that the John Connor who will be born now will have a different father, i.e. the original John was fathered by somebody else other than Kyle.
These people have misapprehended the nature of the original film's story. It's not that they understand that T2 can't work as a sequel to The Terminator but they just choose to relax and go with the flow. They seriously just do not understand the original film.
I don't mind you thinking me some kind of asshole for trashing a film you happen to like. It doesn't mean I'm wrong about the incompatibility. I'm not wrong. You can make the case that it's a great movie in spite of it being a nonsensical sequel to the first story if you like. (I would disagree with that as well, but at least I could respect that argument as being logically coherent.) -
I'm definitely a huge fan of "Avatar," so wherever Cameron chooses to go is good with me. If he heads underwater, does the planet has a different type of influence there? With, like, massive sea creatures? It'll be cool to find out.
Mostly I hope the story is as compelling as the first film, though I never doubt Cameron anymore. I'm sure he'll surprise us.
-
Try Taiwan, usually subtitled in Chinese and Korean. Don't know about dubbed. Maybe wait for a Chinese version of Mystery Science Theater 3000 on Avatar.
-
cameron keeps wasting fucking time with this fluff...
-
Screen work has definitely come along way, and so has CGI. If Cameron really is going to do Pandora's ocean he'll succeed. He already has the experience with the Abyss, and he did that documentary on the Titanic (I'm not talking about that Winslet-DiCaprio love fest). So he's already got the water experience down. I wonder if we'll see a big ball of roots at the moon's core to explain the mother nature linkage system explained in the first film.
-
Apr 20, 2010 10:27:36 PM CDT
Oceanlizard, I'M BEING SERIOUS HERE FOR A MOMENT....
by tehcreepythinman
Will there not be a Blu-ray edition of the movie subbed/dubbed in Chinese and released in North America?
-
...in the epilogue, when the kid said the Terminator was the best dad he ever had, I knew I was witnessing something extraordinary, something that would change the game forever.
-
That sounds pretty sweet. Looking forward to it.
-
Could be terrific!
-
A lot of people,including myself, liked T2. If for some reason you didn't like it, or still hate it, you have every right to not watch it,buy the dvd, or etc. There's no need to stress the point, or try to convince folks that thought it was awesome when it came out nearly 20 years ago.
-
I mean like, DAMN! Even back then when I was a teenager seeing it in a theater I was annoyed at how bad his line delivery was. Other than that I love the first two Terminators quite a lot. T3... don't get me started on that mess. Still haven't seen Salvation, although I think I'm finally ready to check it out.
-
Good point about possible roots at the moon's core. If Cameron goes there, or even somewhere like there, he could vastly expand the story to include a possible distant origin connection.
What I'm thinking is: nothing on Pandora could've built such a complex biological "memory" system. Besides the Na'vi, none of the creatures there are sentient, let alone technologically advanced. It's possible that Pandora developed the "memory" system on its own, but it's a goddamn sophisticated system for such a primitive planet.
If, like you wrote, we see more of the root system, its central functioning, and where it actually comes from, wouldn't that be badass? Especially if whoever built it returns just as the Corporate assholes are bringing more and bigger guns?
Whoa Nelly... -
You might find at least a dvd of Avatar in Taiwan (a legit copy)with Chinese subtitles. I have friends coming and going to Taiwan all the time bringing back dvds and cdvs, haven't seen a Chinese blu-ray movie yet; maybe because of the region coding. But I doubt you will see a Chinese dubbing of the movie released on blu-ray in the US, maybe Canada though (high population of Chinese speakers).
-
Avatar 2 should be the first movie, as told from the POV of the Company. I know it's not a new idea, but damn if it would be interesting as hell.
-
It doesn't need a sequel, but I understand that all the art assets are built and a sequels would be a snap (and profitable). But I REALLY, REALLY want the see "Battle Angel"!. Please?
-
but people raping the earth and other cultures is bad. You think the movie is racist? Well anything done by whites in history books is usually "really great" or swept under the rug. You want to say Avatar has a bad message? Please defend: the post revolution destruction of Native Americans, what happened to South America either after contact or in the 80's, post WWII carving up of the middle east for oil, England's rule of India, South African Apartheid, The Not-War in Iraq, etc etc.
A LOT of bad shit has happened to a lot of peoples over the course of history. I'm not saying everything bad is the white man's fault. Its just that we never admit, understand, or remember the shit that we did. We always were the "heroes" and thats how its taught in school. The victor tells the story right? But maybe people should see the flip side of all those great conquests they hear about. -
If Cameron continues the environmental message and someone hinted awhile ago that Cameron was going to link the Navi with Humans (not sure if it was a talkbacker or actual story concept)it might go something along these lines. Pandora was seeded with life by Earth. A grand experiment to create new life in a hostile environment, using Panadora to replicate Earth's environmental disaster and how to recover the Earth. Next questions are, did it work? What's happening with the project? Are the Navi the replacement to humans? Does Earth's scientists who developed the Avatar project also develop the living planet system to transfer all humans (or just the elite: intellectuals, politicians, wealthy, union leaders, community organizers and the like)into Avatars and live on Pandora or a refurbished Earth, which would be molded like Pandora? But the plot hole is the unobtianium. What the hell is it for? Not clearly defined in the first movie. One can make the inference that it's a power source, but why? Even with low level tech shown in the film, nuclear energy would be a better option while storing spent nuclear power plant cells on the dark side of the moon (temperature control, Space:1999 had a similar idea)
-
please... our own blue earth is much much breathtaking. just our natural wonders alone we have deserts, ice poles, canyons, valleys, rain forests, etc etc... all the landscapes in star wars OT were shot on real location in our own planet. ponder that.
and pandora only has a rainforest?? sure, you could say it's only technically a moon and thus be limited in its environments, and that it may technically be still evolving, but after all the hype... come on! only a rainforest? and what a small rainforest it is since the tanator at the end of the movie was supposed to be the one that chased jake at the beginning??? how many lions we have in africa again? -
...another one of the planet's moons, or the planet itself. So this news took me aback a little, but I can't say I'm all that surprised. Cameron's had a commendably masochistic love affair with filming in water for a long time, and if I had to guess I'd say he jumped on this as his chance to explore those things in a 3D format. I'd much rather see him tackle Battle Angel, but I'm sure it'll be very pretty nonetheless.
-
And boom goes the dynamite.
-
Hehe, Oceanlizard. I liked the "Space: 1999" reference! Not enough of those on these boards.
Anyway, your idea that Pandora might've been seeded by Earth scientists in an earlier time is a funky and interesting idea, but I was thinking more along the lines of Pandora's "memory" system having been built by an alien civilization, possibly millions of years ago, for reasons only that civilization knows. Or maybe it's wasn't a civilization, it was just one enormous, wholly alien entity.
It's just a possibility, I know, but we're talking James Cameron here. He goes places.
And it WOULD be cool to find out what unobtainium is for. I agree with that. I'm sure there's more to that story. -
Were modeled after deep sea life to begin with. Bioluminescent plants and jellyfish-like seed pods. Not to mention the retracting plants. I am 100% there for Avatar II in the oceans.
-
Maybe we've gone to different schools. But last time I was attending college, we discussed a lot of the bad that European settlers did across the world. High school a bit different, usually neutral with exception of the founding fathers of the USA being portrayed as great. But sometimes in the effort to point out the evils of European settlers and the goods of Indigenous peoples what gets lost are the evils that Indigenous peoples performed when they were the settlers. Native Americans were not timid and nice people as a whole, they historically preyed on each other as much as the Europeans preyed on each other. Same with other parts of the world. As of late the Europeans were latest batch of conquers and colonialists (but historically so was China, Eygpt, Persia, India, and the Aztec Nation), but they are also now the latest batch of PC whipping boys. Instead of making future villains of the current PC whipping boys, go back to Camerons take from Aliens, the uncaring entity (corporations, government, a diverse political group). Leave ethnic stereotypes behind.
-
before the film opened, it was lauded to have a climactic battle to end all epic battle. it was said to be on par with the battle of gondor in ROTK.
yeah well, all we got is a video game battle, all visual and no brain. the cool thing about all the battles in the LOTR films is there's a strategy behind every move. there's a thought in the planning, so while your eyes are being fondled by the visuals you brain is stimulated by the chess game. it makes a battle scene more grandeur and the two opponents at both ends look like badass generals.
the end battle in avatar is just duke them nuke them stuff, with many elements borrowed from miyazaki films. what happened to cameron's patented double climax that was the highlight in all his movies? -
That's more than enough to get my ass in the seat. Abyss is gravely under-appreciated.
-
...the end. And then it isn't.
-
The theatrical or director's cut? Both seemed kinda of weak, like Cameron was just exhausted and wanted to end it.
-
I'm just defending my POV against the argument that because the movie has a 98% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I must be wrong.
T2 has a critical plot flaw that requires a little bit of serious thought to understand and makes it logically incompatible with its predecessor story: they cannot coexist in the same narrative universe. To me, that kills the story. My belief is that most people who like T2 do not understand the nature of this flaw. I may be wrong about this: it could be that, yes, they realize it doesn't make sense as a sequel but, y'know what, they don't care, because they simply like it as an action movie. However, in my experience this is not the case; most people who love T2 seem to think it makes perfect sense as a sequel. I could have encountered a misrepresentative sample, I suppose. -
I mean, Jake's now a Navi... Unless they get him a human body that he can control now. Kinda makes sense since his original human body was broken.
-
"But some douche named Kaitain doesn't like it. And his opinion is important. Right."
Not necessarily important. But correct about the fact that it doesn't make sense as a sequel.
I can't be "right" about liking it or not liking it. That's just opinion. I just happen not to like films whose plots contain huge internal flaws, no matter how many wisecracks or explosions they feature. -
Just saying you do.
-
Both versions just fizzle out at the end for me. I'm totally invested and then.... meh.
-
... is even a bigger plot hole than the one you are stressing, point is that it's not integral to the story. People can enjoy those movies without smashing their head against the wall trying to figure out what came before, the chicken or the egg.
-
I mean, it's sci-fi. The rules can be bent to ridiculous measures. Regardless, for me I guess I just didn't care. It was the Terminator, it looked cool and had great action, so I dug it (T2, that is). I just hated Edward Furlong. Gah! Hate!
-
WALL-E especially spent the entire run time yelling in your face MAN IS DESTROYING THE EARTH. But that's a complicated political debate but they're trying to ram rod left wing global warming bullshit propaganda down your throat. It's fuckin preaching. Let's see I'm not sure what's the definition ok here you go 1 : to deliver a sermon
2 : to urge acceptance or abandonment of an idea or course of action; specifically : to exhort in an officious or tiresome mannertransitive verb 1 : to set forth in a sermon
2 : to advocate earnestly
3 : to deliver (as a sermon) publicly
4 : to bring, put, or affect by preaching
the fuck Wall-e wasn't preaching a bunch of bullshit about global warming the entire film. Oh no man is destroying the Earth everyone pay carbon taxes to the derivative trading companies Al Gore invested in so he can make billions of dollars. Then he can buy another private jet and pollute the air some more. Fuck Wall-e that preachy piece of shit film. -
That sucked.
-
I disagree, cloudrider'. The battle at the end of "Avatar" might not have trumped "The Lord of the Rings" Battle of Pelennor Fields, especially the thundering, orc-smashing charge of the Rohirrim, which was fucking glorious, but I still think Cameron showed us something wild and intense and epic.
I think the difference between the two battles is that Quaritch's boys weren't expecting the planet to react. Their strategy was sound -- hit the Na'vi as hard as possible -- which they did. But thanks to Jake Sully's planning and his plea made in the tendril forest a short time earlier, the planet responds, dishing out violence the humans weren't prepared for. This is what turned the tide. It wasn't a chess match. It was biological desperation.
I love both battles, though. Can't wait to see Avatar's again on Blu-ray. -
"Abyss is a great, great film until the end. And then it isn't."
Tend to agree. Cameron really didn't know how to end the movie.
btw, ever noticed the similarities between The Abyss and 2010? Two crews who don't trust each other forced to work together finding and exploring a missing, dead craft in a void, cold war tensions running throughout in the background, an extraterrestrial intelligence lurking, a display of awesome power by said intelligence to shock the humans away from the brink of war (in the director's cut of The Abyss), and crucial messages conveyed from (or on behalf of) the aliens on what feels like a teletype near the end? -
Jake isn't really Navi. He's a hybrid Human/Navi; more of a new life form which can still be called an Avatar (maybe an independent Avatar). Remember they used Human and Navi DNA to create the Avatar. Like when a horse breeds with a donkey and creates a mule. Mules aren't horses or donkey, in fact their a sterile mix of both. Oh...new movie concept, Jake's love interest leaves him because he can't breed.
-
Eco-disaster on Pandora!!! ;-)
-
...when you think you've made a point. What the fuck do you think films do? Have you ever seen a Kubrick film? Or any film by the masters of the past? Shit, Chaplin? Siiiigh. lol Now back to the other interesting conversations we were having...
-
He will betray the Navi for the love of this pandofish and become a pandofish himself, and he will fight the navi when they make fishing vessels and try and fish for profit! Well, whatever the Navi consider profit I suppose. But once a betrayer of your species, ALWAYS a betrayer of your species. That's what my Mom told me!
-
"I mean, it's sci-fi. The rules can be bent to ridiculous measures."
Yeah, that's an interesting one. If in a Superman movie it was suddenly asserted that Superman could morph into any human form and disguise himself, would you shrug and say, "well, it's a fantasy movie, so I guess they can do whatever they want"?
I mean, most of us hate the stupidity of the Star Wars prequels, where the internal logic just doesn't add up. I think anything goes when ESTABLISHING the rules of your universe, but breaking them halfway through seems kinda sucky to me.
Rules of The Terminator: there is only one history. Ergo, it cannot be changed. Agents who think they are changing history turn out to have been a vital part of the single history that was always there.
Rules of T2: when you go back in time, you have the power to change history, or at least to drive off in a new direction in some parallel branch.
Those are totally different rule sets. -
At least to me, someone who liked the movie. Jake isn't really Na'vi. Even with the transfer of his conscience, or soul, or whatever they transferred. lol I hope they address that in the sequel.
-
... it's still a solid point. I mean "avatar" is a defined term, and Jake is no avatar, and doesn't have one anymore.
-
...or any explanation for my not caring. But that's the only reasoning I can find for overlooking the obvious hole. It just doesn't bother me. To be honest, I actually find T2 to be a far superior film (other than Furlong). So maybe that's why I have so little problem accepting it. Terminator is great, but it looks nothing like T2 when you watch them back to back. Everything about T2 LOOKS better to me. Taking this whole discussion a step further, though. All four of the films make no damn sense in this regard. They really just pretty much ignore each other completely. Kinda sucks, because they could have done some really cool stuff if they connected properly.
-
Apr 20, 2010 11:51:24 PM CDT
Unfortunately clearly defined terms rarely remain so m_reporter
by oceanlizard
It's one of the reasons English is such a difficult language. Words with multiple definitions, grammar and syntax exceptions...a pain in the right butt cheek.
-
T3 was crap, but Salvation is a travesty. I prefer to ignore them completely.
-
For me they were missing a lot of build-up. You knew they were coming and as such they lacked some needed tension. In some ways it felt like Cameron forced them in there. Also, I think the final GROUND battle is spectacular. But the air battle is missing something for me. Even the previous falling of the Mother Tree. It was sad and emotional and packed all the punch he was looking for in that regard. But a bunch of big ass ships in a semi-circle around the base blasting away was just... I don't know... almost silly looking.This is a much more interesting point to discuss for me, btw. One it seems most people skip over completely when discussing what they perceive as flaws in the movie.
-
I'm expecting a crappy story line, piss poor acting, and great special effects mayhem. I want a Cheesy movie with my popcorn please!
-
Apr 20, 2010 11:57:44 PM CDT
I think it's a bit far fetched to expect a redefinition...
by m_reporter
...of the term "avatar", only so Fox can keep the title for the sequel. They're either going to reintroduce the avatar theme (which I hope they won't), or they will simply either rename the film or disregard this little inconsistency. Either way I don't care, as long as they don't tack on the avatar theme only so they can justify the title.
-
in avatar, the bad guy plan is 'let's use all force and bomb the tree'. the good guy plan is 'let's gather all force and attack them'. there's no military strategy involved at all in how they could do about it with higher chance of success. it took jake and quaritch all but 2 seconds to come up with their plans. heck, i'm no war general and i could come up with that plan in 1 second.
when the ground troops charged in the forest, did the na'vi plan how they would meet them in battle? did any na'vi hide up in the tree top waiting to ambush them? did they charge from the left and right of the enemy flank? no, they got on their goddamn horses and charged straight up while screaming from a mile away, letting themselves be blown away by big guns like idiots. -
It doesn't really have a true paradox. A true paradox is something that is internally inconsistent. The Terminator doesn't feature that.
Now, some people would say that it has a predestination paradox. However, a PP is not (imo) a true, "hard" paradox. It's a soft paradox at best, and imo not a paradox at all.
If that sounds like so much waffle, allow me to expand. A predestination "paradox" would say that it's paradoxical that Reese appeared in the first version of 1984, because 2029 hasn't happened yet. But this is applying our conceived notions of causality to the story, when they're not appropriate. In a single timeline universe, the whole of history has always existed in toto, therefore 1984 doesn't actually exist "before" 2029, it just sits slightly to the left of it in the static 4D structure. To us, who only ever move one way along that dimension, it *seems* like 1984 must come into existence before 2029 does, but we are (in this kind of universe) actually wrong. Our intuitions lead us astray, and prompt us to reject as impossible something that is actually possible.
Imagine that you lived in a country where scaffolding had never been invented. In this country, the only structures that can ever be built to completion are those that can support their own weight at every step of the way, i.e. every brick added to a building must not form an unstable structure. You might visit another country where scaffolding had been invented, and label some of the buildings as "paradoxical" because the structures could not (it seemed to you) hold their own weight in partial form. The COMPLETED structure can be seen to be mutually supporting, but all your previous experience tells you that this is not good enough, because you know (or think you know) that the thing has to be created piece by piece.
Scaffolding essentially allows us to create a structure whose final form supports its own weight without requiring that each individual stage has to as well. The Terminator has a structure that supports its own weight, but if you assume that 1984 must exist before 2029 does, it seems paradoxical.
As an aside, this issue is functionally very similar to the debate between Darwinists and creationists: Darwinists assert that evolution featured in-between stages that could "support their own weight" at every turn, whereas creationists believe that certain structures would not have been able to work as in-between stages and thus must have been created in one single move in order to be viable.
If the universe of The Terminator were truly paradoxical, then even a god could not have built it. But it seems to me that a god could indeed have built the universe of The Terminator: it is internally consistent and self-supporting, not contradictory. -
Well, considering most people's favorite Superman movie is the one where he flies backwards around the earth to reverse time... I do feel bad for the people ganging up on you and you have just as much right to like whatever you want for the same (or different) weird reasons as anybody else, but I'm pretty sure you're technically incorrect when you imply that 98% of the world's population are morons. 98% of the world's population (including James Cameron, probably) might not consider an accurate representation of "static 4D models" the basis of a good movie, but that's not quite the same thing.
-
But movies are expensive and my free time is very valuable to me. There is no way I'm going to pay to see that movie in a theater.
-
I'm of a slightly different opinion, in that I don't feel Cameron forced the battles in there, but I do know what you mean about the buildup.
It happened fast. Faster than people were probably expecting, which affected perceptions of it. My own take is that it worked because everything was on the line. It felt different than Pelennor Fields, I agree. Less was known about both sides. But Jake Sully's impassioned speech (the one from the trailer) "... but we will send THEM a message... that this, this is OUR land!" was all I needed to hear to have it be dramatic. That set the stage.
But I hear your points too. -
What is everyone's best guess, are we going to see humans coming back for round 2, or is it more going to be about the internal struggle of the lifeforms on Pandora. Some of the Na'Vi upset about this hybrid leading the way.
-
"I'm pretty sure you're technically incorrect when you imply that 98% of the world's population are morons"
I don't think that. I do think that most people who watch the two movies don't see the incompatibility. This doesn't automatically entail moronhood, though. Most of the world's population doesn't understand calculus or anything other than the most basic algebra, but that doesn't make them morons.
If there were a movie made whose plot was based on a hopeless misunderstanding of algebra, many/most people would watch it and see no obvious problem with it. -
...if the Abyss aliens were from Pandora's ocean. Maybe in a cameo.
-
Not having a PhD level knowledge understanding of time and/or predestination paradoxes does not make one a moron. I would have very little argument for you in regards to most people not making full use of their own mental capacities. As a species, I find us very disappointing, in general. However, still doesn't make people moronic. Just lazy, unmotivated and uninspired. That being said, your explanation for the difference between a time and predestination paradox, and the way in which you worked that into explaining your dislike of their use in the Terminator films was well written and quite interesting. At least right up until you stretched it into the last two paragraphs. I'm not going to get into all that again right now. However, moronic or not, I have nothing so eloquent to give you in response as to why it doesn't bother me. It just doesn't. I like T2 more than The Terminator. *shrug*
-
"Well, considering most people's favorite Superman movie is the one where he flies backwards around the earth to reverse time..."
I bet most Superman fans felt pretty ripped off by both that and the memory-wipe kiss in Superman II. Certainly they wouldn't have granted it extra latitude because it was e.g. "only a superhero movie".
I just don't buy the idea that internal logic is important in some genres and not in others. I mean, perhaps comedy can get away with more, but even there you can't make many non sequitur moves without starting to piss off the audience. Crazy establishing scenarios are fine. After that, the plot has to be driven by its own internal logic to a large degree. -
I am currently in China and surrounded by bootleg copies of "Avatar".
-
I also wanted to see Cameron move on to Battle Angel or Neon Genesis Evangelion (my preference, not rumoured).
But he has invested big time into the creation of Pandora and obviously wants to spend more time here.
-
"At least right up until you stretched it into the last two paragraphs. I'm not going to get into all that again right now."
Just to be clear, I don't have any interest in arguing for one side or another of that debate. I was merely observing that - so far as I can tell - serious arguments between Darwinists and Creationists are primarily debates about the viability of intermediate stages of complex structures. -
... the Terminator time paradox isn't really a paradox? I admire your zeal dude, but I think you might be a bit too invested in to this. Still, how could the future John Connor be conceived in the 1st place, if his father is actually younger than him, and has to travel back through time to screw his mother so John could be born in the 1st place?
-
Does Cameron want to make an Avatar sequel or a documentary about Pandora, specifically the Oceans of Pandora.
Cameron hasn't disappointed with movies before (yeah ok Piranha) so I have faith in him, but am hoping he comes at this from a storyteller perspective rather than a documentary/scientific perspective. How he manages to blend his two perspectives is the key -
You have no idea.
:) -
I don't think there's much missing, though. In regards to the build-up or making either side appear to have more strategy. Although, in defense of some of the Na'vi strategy, that's probably the only way they knew how to fight. There appeared to be very few things they had to fear on Pandora. Especially if you consider how connected everything is. They probably hadn't faced a platoon of armed mech warriors before. Anyway, I'm digressing there. What I wanted to say was, if there is a longer version of the film released I hope they can add a few minutes that address the strategy, or lack thereof, as well as adding a bit more tension leading into the battle.
-
I do find it interesting that Cameron made T2 at a time when tensions over nuclear armageddon were pretty high and his message was 'we can make our own fate' and yet for T3 when nuclear war was not at the forefront of consciousness, the message was completely different, 'nope, you're screwed. Can't change fate."
-
Nothing but respect over here, though. Passion is a good thing in my book. And intelligent conversations about films are always appreciated around here these days. I'm diggin' it myself.
-
Ah, those bad white men are at it again!
-
That's basically the point, cloudrider'. It wasn't a chess match. It wasn't like The Lord of the Rings.
It was biological desperation. Meaning the humans pretty much believed there was no way they could lose, and they were right. They kicked the Na'vi's asses for most of the battle. Hundreds, probably thousands of Na'vi died in those charges. You can say they should've planned it better, but what better strategy would you have used? Hide in the trees until you can shoot them with bows? That's a defensive strategy at best. It's also one that would've lost them the battle very quickly. After killing the flying beasts, the humans would've just missiled the forests to burning cinders.
Sully's plan was actually a very good one, under the circumstances: distract and divide the human forces with full ground and air aggression. Take it to them, essentially, and who gives a fuck if we lose?
Not capitulating was the point. And they would've lost the battle even with the best of strategies if the planet hadn't reacted. -
I'm pretty sure the planned sequels are feature films. But man, the idea of a faux doc on Pandora is pretty damn cool.
-
"Not capitulating was the point. And they would've lost the battle even with the best of strategies if the planet hadn't reacted."Yep.
-
The way I heard it he was fired two days into shooting by the producer, who had a nasty habit of doing that to his directors. Cameron stayed on as the SFX guy or something, but he wasn't directing.
-
but to ease your burden regarding t2, let me just throw it out there that some scientists believe in the existence of multi-verse. the t-800 that came through time in T1 and T2 might not come from the same future in the same universe. there. feel better now?
-
Don't care.
-
It just happened to be an American film made by an American director. I did see it as the big business white man continuing his conquering ways. There isn't really an argument against the fact that we've lived that way for hundreds of years now.
-
Reese can be Connor's father because at the level of the 4D static structure 1984 is not prior to 2029. "Before" as conventionally conceived means "lies to the left of along the time axis", and we're used to thinking of the universe as a place where May 1st 2010 simply doesn't exist yet (at the time of writing), at all, in any form, but will be created dynamically when the time comes, like a train frantically throwing down railway tracks in front of it at the very last moment as it chugs eastward. But in the world of The Terminator, the tracks are already laid down. 2029 has always existed. 1984 has always existed. There isn't true causality, just a series of truth relationships between adjacent states, and (very occasionally) subsections of non-adjacent states. Almost all moments in this structure have truth relationships that are defined exclusively in terms of the adjacent states. May 12th 1984 is unusual in having a small part of it defined by a truth relationship with a small part of [whatever date it was] 2029.
-
"There's always a bigger fish."
-
"feel better now?"
No. Because that explanation doesn't work for The Terminator, which is clearly set in a single timeline universe, not a multiverse (unless you're going to be amazingly obtuse about the photograph, which is included as a watermark to demonstrate that nothing has changed and that there is only a single version of history). I mean, unless you're saying that TT and T2 actually have no relationship to each other, other than by pure coincidence of the characters looking the same. You could certainly pull that manoeuvre, although it would be something of a pyrrhic victory: by those rules you could just as easily claim that T2 was set in the same multiverse as The Phantom Menace, and is therefore a valid sequel to it.
The multiverse hypothesis doesn't in general work particularly well for time travel narratives. It's sometimes deployed rather sloppily as a quasi-explanation. But really, all it says is that all possible universes play themselves out. That's fine for counterfactual fiction, or stories in which someone hops laterally to an alternate universe, but why bring time-travel specifically into it? Also, motive and agency become a bit pointless. What is Skynet trying to achieve? In a multiverse scenario, there are already infinite parallel universes in which it triumphed over John Connor (or indeed over somebody else), so what is the purpose of the agent sent through time? -
As mentioned, a multi-verse, or alternate realities. And time is a man-made construct anyway. But still, you're making me want to read a book, dude.
-
I was really hoping for the sequal to involve the other moons of the gas giant. You know open up and expand the Avatar universe. This sounds like it could be interesting, but I really dont have a damn clue what it could be about story wise.....
-
Adding my two cents to the Terminator timeline discussion, I tend to see "The Terminator" as a standalone film, causality-wise, and the others as unnecessary embellishments. That said, I still enjoy "Terminator 2" when I ignore the obvious timeline break from the first film.
It's still "The Terminator," after all.
As opposed to the lukewarm, kind of ridiculous third film and the unwatchable, shit-all-over-the-franchise fourth film, both of which I ignore completely.
There's my two cents. Good discussion here. -
@jaka: "Although, in defense of some of the Na'vi strategy, that's probably the only way they knew how to fight. There appeared to be very few things they had to fear on Pandora."
except they have jake as their leader. he's a marine with combat experience. and he knows how the enemy would think. your troop is only as good your leader, is it not?
@Cobbio: i dont see how taking shots at the enemy troops below from up in the tree is any worse than charging straight up noisily on your horses. when your weapon is primitive and your enemy has big firepower, you should consider the element of surprise. charging them head on is suicide. even jake doesnt have to tell them that. i dont think the na'vi is even that stupid. i blame it solely on cameron's lazy writing.
when you're greatly outnumbered the only way to win is to plan well. jake was playing to lose from the get go. -
really can take it anywhere. The universe he has created has the in-built structure to allow for almost any possibility.....Could be cool.....
-
Must fly.
-
I love my dressing gown! My underpants don't exactly thrill me.
-
I agree - no argument, really. Only thing I could say is that Jake didn't have time to teach them all properly yet (which is true), especially with him still being just an Avatar at that point. But I'll admit that's stretching a little.I'm not sure that Jake wasn't aware of the fact that they could lose from the word go, though. In a sense, they'd already lost. What they were fighting for at that point was the losing control of the moon. It didn't really matter of they lost, because they were going to lose everything they had left in their figurative world if they didn't fight. Still, not really any argument against the fact that even a modicum of better planning could have saved a few lives.This did just bring some thoughts into my head about sequels, though. When Jake was doing the gathering of the tribes bit, they did travel to an ocean and encountered some Na'vi who looked just a bit different than those who lived at Home Tree. I wonder if they, or their previous relationship with Jake, will be a direct part of the sequel?
-
you're still too smart for me. kaitain, really, it's such a small issue to me. i mean, it's a robot coming from the future movie. at best, it's using pseudo science. you sound like someone who will tear down a star trek episode because all those people inside the enterprise are not floating around in zero gravity environment.
-
The Na'vi actually HAD the element of surprise, cloudrider'. They clustered in the transmission-dampening fog of the mountains so they couldn't be tracked, remember? That was Jake's idea. As their general, he used the environment they were familiar with to stage the battle.
This was about as good an advantage as they were going to get, so Sully used it, full on, with coordinated flybys and ground charges to distract the humans and divert their combined firepower away from any particular attacking group.
Basically, it's a pretty damn good strategy.
Also, charging head-on is exactly the type of thing that fires up an army. Gets their blood boiling and intimidates the enemy, regardless of how many casualties your army takes. It shows no fear, especially to soldiers burnishing superior firepower.
And if you think Sully was playing "not to lose," I definitely wouldn't wouldn't want you as my military leader.
Just saying. If Sully hadn't fought the way he fought, the planet wouldn't have responded the way it responded. -
i always wonder what all the other tribes think about the one tribe who lives in the one sacred tree in all pandora. talk about monopoly of the home tree.
-
Hipsters because its oh so cool to trash someone else's work without justifying it with your own and liars because as much as you deride the movie you'll still see it. You should all start the world's biggest Death Cab for Cutie tribute band.
-
I agree with most of that last post. Can't really get behind the in your face charge, though. We stopped doing that over a hundred years because it made no damn sense. In the case of the Na'vi, considering the value they place on life and interconnectednous of it all (which is, I think, what was getting their blood-boiling to begin with), it makes even less sense. While watching the movie in the theater I thought it was an incredible waste of life. But Jake didn't really have the time, nor the equipment, to teach them a better way to fight, so I can live with it.
-
...the entire talkback, yet. Heh.
-
Thanks for the chat. I'm pretty sure that's the best Avatar/Cameron discussion I've ever had at AICN.
-
"They clustered in the transmission-dampening fog of the mountains so they couldn't be tracked, remember?"
very convenient that the enemy would choose to go into "the transmission-dampening fog", wouldnt you think? lucky lucky na'vi. and not being able to track or shoot on target is such a poor advantage to conceive anyway. i mean, the na'vi are bigger than you and they're everywhere. just aim and shoot and you're bound to hit something. target lock be damned.
"Also, charging head-on is exactly the type of thing that fires up an army. Gets their blood boiling and intimidates the enemy, regardless of how many casualties your army takes."
i would call that kind of army suicidal and being stupid. use your head, plan well, less casualty, higher chance of winning. i'd call that a smart army.
"Just saying. If Sully hadn't fought the way he fought, the planet wouldn't have responded the way it responded."
the planet responded because jake is the only bothered to make a wish upon the wishing tree. every living na'vi in the whole planet didnt even think about that. viva white caucasian and his superior logic. -
A shark with TWO DORSAL FINS. A kraken with TWELVE arms. Avatar sure spent a lot of money on making it look pretty but crazy and imaginative is stretching.
-
You're trying to hard now and I'm too tired to get into this further. Maybe more in the morning. But I think you know it wasn't that simple with 2 of the 3 points you made in your last post.
-
Avatar was awesome - it had great special effects and some wicked explosions. It started boring cos you're just running around with the night elves and night elves suck cos they're just rouges who gank you. But then army blew up that stupid tree and all the blue things are wailing, and army is like "STFU!" and blows them away. Then there's a big fight at the end between the dragons and the spaceships and it was cool except I forget who won at the end cos the ridalin wore off by then. That was the only thing wrong with Avatar, it was too long, they should've cut like 3 hours off the movie and it would've been perfect. Plus why were the aliens blue night elves? Make them black cos black is cool, and make them look fuck-off scary.
Anyway, I'll leave you nerds to your arguing. Stupid internet nerds, that's all you do is argue, cos nobody in real life will talk to you, let alone argue with you. I hate you nerds but I'll probably get to bash you one day cos I go to lots of different high schools cos my Dad is a Marine and could kill your Dad, we keep moving a lot from post to post.
Avatar is cool cos me and my friends say it's cool, so it is cool. Nobody who posts here is cool, except for me cos I'm telling you you're not cool and that is cool.
I can't wait for Avatar 2. Fuck this ocean shit though, that shit is gay. -
My previous comment does not apply to anyone actually interested in this film or its sequels.
-
You make some good points, cloudrider' -- could they have charged differently? Charged from different locations? Flanked the human ground soldiers?
Maybe. It's true they probably could have done this and had more success.
Did Jake have time to train them in these methods, however? I don't know. Aside from being an intimidating assault, the charge also mirrored episodes of human history where a desperate underdog makes a last-ditch attempt to prevent annihilation. The Sioux come to mind in this respect.
Anyway, good talk tonight. Thanks Jaka, cloudrider', and Kaitain.
Good night. -
Think of the Talkbacks like a wonderful garden - lots of vegetables, a handful fruits, piles of dirt and an awful lot of worms, slugs and bugs.I, too, say bring on AVATAR TWO FOREVER BLUE. My favourite James Cameron film (outside ALIENS, of course) is ABYSS (director's cut). Jim goes well with water.
-
I know they're sometimes long, but really, you need to read the entire thread before you post snarky comments. It's just the way it works. Sometimes this place can be really frustrating. But when you've got the right tools to get through the dirt, worms, slugs and bugs, the fruit and vegetables can be quite tasty.
-
are a moot point.
Especially considering the fact that James Cameron himself already stated quite some time ago that the sequel is to be called Na'Vi because Jake Sully no longer has an Avatar. -
Apr 21, 2010 2:04:06 AM CDT
There's nothing in Terminator that says history can't be changed
by tall_boy66
I mean, sweet Jesus, the "there's no fate but what we make for ourselves" speech is from that very movie. It says it right there. I think completely blowing T2 as being awful based on what you perceive to be a plot hole does a disservice to the rest of the film as a whole. Every single action scene, every single creepy robotic moment that Robert Patrick has in the film, every single shot which actually got nominated for cinematography that year is ALL COMPLETELY irrelevant because what you think is a plot whole? The whole damn movie? I mean, really? You're just sitting there watching the whole thing that won various awards and various critical kudos and thinking "this does not obey the rules of time travel that were established by vague insinuations in the first film and therefore makes this film completely bad?" How does a person even watch a film like that?
-
"you sound like someone who will tear down a star trek episode because all those people inside the enterprise are not floating around in zero gravity environment."
Nah, that's not really me. Have artificial gravity. Or don't have artificial gravity. But be consistent once you have set up your worlds. And don't build an entire first story about one key rule of your narrative universe, and then break that rule without any explanation in your second story.
Imagine that The Sixth Sense 2 started with Bruce Willis alive and well in the everyday world, without any explanation. Would it be tearing down this new movie (it's only a silly genre movie, after all!) to point out this flagrant inconsistency? -
leave it to Cameron to know how to do a sequel
-
fact
-
"There's nothing in Terminator that says history can't be changed"
Yes there is. That's precisely what the photograph signifies. You just have to work it out for yourself; the movie doesn't dumb things down by explaining to you what it shows you.
"the "there's no fate but what we make for ourselves" speech is from that very movie. It says it right there"
No it doesn't. That line is from T2. It is never spoken in The Terminator. You might have thought it was, because Cameron pulls a nice subtle retcon in T2. Sarah claims to be saying the words that Reese conveyed to her from John. But those words are not in John's speech. Sorry.
"this does not obey the rules of time travel that were established by vague insinuations in the first film"
Do you think that there are vague insiniations in La Jetee that we're watching a time loop in a single universe? What about Twelve Monkeys? Vague insinuations? The little boy at the end could be anyone, I suppose, rather than Bruce Willis as a child? The photograph of Sarah taken by the Mexican kid could just coincidentally be exactly the same as the one Reese had in 2029?
While we're at it, can someone explain to me why there's a statue on the Planet of the Apes that looks just like the one back on Earth, billions of miles away? I've never understood why that scene's in the movie.
-
"also people who hate T2 = fucking idiots"
You're asserting equality rather than a mere implication relationship? (Rubs chin.) That would mean of necessity that all fucking idiots hate T2. Useful to know. Maybe I should start going to the movies with Glenn Beck or someone similar. -
Hollywood hates Cameron so much they gave the Best Director Oscar to his nominally talented, hack director ex-wife just to give him the finger!
-
How about a fucking edit function on this site!
-
All right! Just make sure to include Jabberjaw!
-
Right after the Phantom menace backlash. People showing how "smart" they are here, by putting down the movie. Movie makes a ton of money. Productors/director skipping and singing their way to the bank, counting millions. Sequel comences production. Tards here still doing their "smart" retorts here... tension mounts. Tards here come and show again how "smart" they are. Second movie makes a ton of money. Productors/director happily get drunk while driving their impossibly expensive new cars. Third movie starts production. Tards here being "smart". Third movie opens. Makes a ton of money. Tards still being "smart" and complaining here. Producers/director cumming all over the place while swimming in green paper. Tards still complaining.
yup... the circle of life. -
My first thought here was to make a Waterworld joke. Then a bunch of people beat me to it. Damn.
-
When was the last time Cameron did not go over budget? Titanic? True Lies? T2? The Abyss? Who cares? The movie will make over $2 billion anyway.
-
Apr 21, 2010 3:55:21 AM CDT
I was hoping Pandora would be a bit more fantastical
by winona_ryders_pussy_juice
I agree the creature designs weren't THAT creative. They looked really nice and all but I don't know. Here's hoping they get a bit more creative with the underwater environment.
-
T2 was amazing, but Edward Furlong almost murdered it with his JarJar Binks-esque dialogue. I mean, it was awful. It just shows you that Cameron can only write for robots (what irony, right?).
-
That's right, I said it.
-
GIJoe ROC already beat you to it.No doubt you could do a better job at it.
-
Apr 21, 2010 4:27:47 AM CDT
havent we had enough underwater movies from this guy
by dioxholsterreturns
what really pisses me off is that he goes on to do a space movie then in the end he reverts back to that ocean stuff he likes so much.
-
My suggestion is Steven Soderberg. They seemed to get on well in the Solaris commentary, and I really loved that movie.
-
Cause he certainly didn't do one fucking ounce of that in the first film.
-
of course there wont be any character developments, it will just go like this:
Jake wants to swim with his new navi body, swims with his chick then finds another Nature-brain thing underwater and links up to it (in his ass) and then finds out a great secret involving stinky fish. another group of humans from Earth goes to Pandora as refugees from some kind of war on Earth. Navi will be like "you can stay and live with us, as long as you dont buttfuck us again" and then Jake discovers that these humans all want to be navi too, and hes like you cant because you aint as cool as me. so these humans go to underwater nature-brain thing and try to make themselves Navi but end up being something else completely, something evil. and then its nature-brain Vs. another evil twin nature-brain thing. in the end more humans arrive to nuke stuff coz they like pissed off. THE END. -
That's a great commentary. And cool idea to get the pair of them writing together.
-
but i'd rather Jim moved on and did some A. a little more grown up and B. something more original.
-
and see what other stories Jim is capable of ripping from.
-
..for this uninspired franchise/sequel.Cashgrab over creativity, The fucker done sold us out again.
-
Make something else. come back in 4 years
-
If he thinks that rehashed stuff like Avatar is the paradigm of movie going. It looked pretty but not really any better than a cut scene from any video game. how about some real story telling? Speilberg and Fat Neck Lucas lost that ability a long time ago as well. Where are the storytellers?
-
and then do what he always does. make another gazzillion dollars for fox. fox will give the avatar sequels to someone else. he will then go and make his non cgi film. hollywood will then garner more accolades. more five star reviews from empire will follow. Harry and those people who hate cameron haters will once again cheerlead, their hero. over-ridlng those people who do proper critical analysis. the people who point out time and again, how awful cameron is at dialoug. they will be torn to pieces by harry and the cameron god worshipers. james cameron is an arrogant bully, who walks all over everybody to get what he wants. the bullys here approve. thats why they like him so much.
-
I'm joining this one late on, but I just have to respond to Oceanlizard's comments about Avatar's portrayal of white American males. No disrespect mate but really? Do you actually feel slighted? Would you have been happier with a more ethnically diverse human cast? Do you think they'd still all have had to adopt an American accent like Worthington did to be accepted by American audiences? But then, wasn't he the hero? That strapping, white pseudo-American male?
-
Kinda like T1 and T2.
-
dont forget that haters.cheerio.
-
'Cuz then I might go see it.
-
...I am not sure auidences would be able to deal with the film with just Navi and the other inhabitants- I think the humans come back- they have cloned Jake's brother- even cloned Jake himself- offering temptation back to the other world etc
-
You're playing in the ocean now, Jamey? With your blue dolls? Aww how cute...
-
the photo is not a proof that fate in T1 is predestined.It is a proof that a circle exists in the timeline,but in no way it is a proof that the circle can not be broken.
Thats what are the events in T2,one more circle but this time Cameron explored the idea that maybe there is a possibility that this circle can be broken and change fate.After all,there is no apparent proof or even hint by the end of the movie,that the future was changed,only the hope that the man is master of his destiny. -
Avatar body.And then he goes in a fist fight with Jake.
-
horrah!
-
eh that's enough trying to be witty and stuff
-
that makes it umm funnier...yeah
-
And Avatar 2 is like a Jaws film. How awesome would that be?
-
dont know if you were being sarcastic or honestly asking but i'll bite anyway. lol the reason the statue is at the end is because its the revelation that they aren't on another planet but have been on Earth all along, just far into the future.
-
about something. Cameron's film made over 2.5 billion at the box office. techinally it raised the bar with 3d. all that i get. the story was weak. cameron is a very commerical filmmaker. he knows how to make money for fox. owever there is another filmmaker and the mere mention of his name is very short name engenders a bellicose response from talkbackers. he equally is a very commercial filmmaker. his last film was a box office smash. despite being accused of filling his film with racist sterotypes. this filmmaker is known is known for making big good looking films, he is the go to guy for cinematic loud bangs. Cameron kick this guy ass at the box office. this unamed director, made one the biggest sequels of all time. made hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office worldwide. This unnamed director now remakes horror films. and gets a battering for it.
-
but didn't we say everything that needed to be said with the first film?
-
Apr 21, 2010 8:21:36 AM CDT
Maybe this time he'll steal his own work . . .
by adiehardfanwithalethalweapon
and redo Abyss instead of dance with wolves.
-
Apr 21, 2010 8:22:38 AM CDT
Blue Avatar dudes standing on the bow of a boat sayin...g
by thatswhatshesaid
I the king of the worrrrrrrld. That would be awesome.
-
Whoever directed that film should sue his ass!
-
Competing Company—Weyland-Yutani—releases xenomorphs onto Pandora. Colonial Marines are sent in to "clean up". Hilarity ensues!
-
Apr 21, 2010 8:29:29 AM CDT
Avatar Could Learn a Few Things From Land Before Time Series..
by darfurontherocks2
Specifically, how to maintain quality when making a sequel.... or 10....
-
While reading his little blurb. "Wah wah wah wah wah Pandora, wah wah wah wah Alpha Cen-wah-wah. Wah wah wah wah wah wah."
I missed the flight the first time. Anxious to miss the boat again next time. -
What Cameron needs to "explore" is some original story ideas. Even he himself covered the ocean in Abyss.
-
was not enough evidence that the planet had some connection with Earth...
-
He had all the best moments, all the best lines. Hell, he even made some of the real groaners into semi-tolerable dialogue. He was also the most interesting character, I would say, and probably my favorite Cameron villainous character (it's hard to say the Queen, the Terminator, etc are characters since by their nature they lack most semblances of humanity). As for Avatar in general, couldn't we have gotten a black guy or something to be Jake? Now THAT would have been a daring choice. But another movie about the guilty white man who saves the 'savages'? Come on. Check out what the guy looked like who played Tsu'tey. Now imagine THAT guy as Jake. It would have been rad. Hell, there are plenty of quality black actors out there who could have owned that role. Idris Elba comes to mind, for one.
-
I hope they find gunguns.
-
damn morning spelling...
-
Massa bombad idea, muey-muey poodoo
-
no, bitching about firsters = I'm a total fucking gayrod.
-
Waterworld of Avatard
Yoosa sayin people gonna drown?
Starring Jar Jar Binks and the voice of Ellen Degeneres.
My interest in this movie has just sunk faster than the Titanic. I thought we were getting a war film?
And don't say, but Cobra - you could have a war film 'underwater'. Because yeah, you could. BUT IT WOULD BE SHIT. You knowit and I know it. -
... just sayin'
-
I know what you mean, but considering how Avatar's portrayal of white people has been received by some, could you imagine the response if it featured an African American protagonist 'going native'? Whole new can of worms. Personally, I wonder if the lack of different ethnicites was deliberate - if they showed us a multicultural army, the contempt for the Na'vi becomes somewhat incongruous, no?
-
They will still go and see Avatar 2.
I will be out tonight at 12:01 to pick up my copy of Avatar. I also love the ocean so having the sequel be in Pandora's oceans is fine with me. -
lly discusses film here, unfortunatly not much. It is mostly name calling, and broad exclamations about how much someone hate this, or someone hates that.
-
I, like you thought I could have guessed where Avatar might be going if it involved the other moons around the gas giant. But given this news, I really have no clue what type of Story this would entail. Also, fuck knows what the hell this would look like. How do they get underwater, what do they use? etc.... Anyone out there got any good ideas?
-
but i mean i've seen the sequels so i know the history but i can see if someone never saw them or even back when it first came out, it wasn't completely obvious it was earth. even Heston's famous line at the end implies earth was maybe destroyed. who knows maybe this is a case where it wasn't Earth until the sequels retconned it to be that way. on the other hand i've only seen the original once and it was years so maybe they do make a direct reference that i don't remember. anyway this is about Avatar so ummmm......the sequel needs double D Na'vi.
-
and some latin marines,so i dont think it was deliberate.Remember in Aliens that the Company men were all white? was that in purpose then? i dont think so.
-
I also thought we were getting a war film. Dont know how the hell this plays into that. I would suspect we would still be getting one as switching to the all out action genre is Cameron's main tactic when dealing with sequals (Aliens, T2). But otherwise your guess is as good as mine....
-
The hunt just got bigger.
-
No, I don't remember that from Aliens (aside from Paul Reiser), but if you look at the top of most Western companies, what face do you see? I just don't understand the fuss. If Cameron has an axe to grind, it's with these people: the recognisable face of corporate America. Yes, it's all a bit pantomime villain, but certainly not ethnicity/gender bashing.
-
SouthAfricanGuy, i'll tell you what's up - the bile in my throat. This underwater shit strikes me as a horrible idea. Cool for a sequence or two but predominantly setting the whole thing under the sea? No.
Apart from that it's going very well mate cheers, recently got back from a trip to Africa myself actually - a beautiful country in many ways (you're in Korea tho right?) -
Apr 21, 2010 9:41:47 AM CDT
Do ocean creatures have wireless access to the bio-network?
by royston lodge
It would be pretty impractical for all the marine creatures to be tethered to the ocean floor in order to log in to Pandora's bio-network.
-
Apr 21, 2010 9:42:55 AM CDT
I bet the squid from Watchmen lives in Pandora's ocean.
by royston lodge
Think about it.
It makes sense.
Heh heh heh ... -
does anymore? He's pretty much proven he can't tell the kinds of thrilling stories he used to come up with. Maybe time he handed over the tech to the next generation of real writers and directors. I was pulling for Avatar like crazy, until I saw it. Anyone else in this boat.
Oh, and - water... AGAIN??? Jesus... -
Avatar wasn't a bad movie, but I agree with the others it was a heavily recycled story. Other than it being set on another planet, there really wasn't anything original about it. However it was a gorgeous movie, some of the scenes were breath taking. I'm sure if this gets made it will be another huge box office hit for Mr. Cameron.
-
You know, like the marines and Ripley, or Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese, or Bud and Lindsay Brigman. Even Tom Arnold's character in True Lies was more interesting and fleshed out better than anyone in Avatar. Btw, I don't hate Avatar, I think it's a monumental achievement, but it takes more than glitz and shine to keep me involved in a movie, esp for 2 1/2 hours.
-
Saw it on IMAX 3-D at the Universal Citywalk. But I've seen it two times since then, and by the third time I was definitely checking my watch, ticking away the minutes in my head, until the next cool part. That's what Avatar is: a few cool sequences stitched together with a weak story and characters. It's not a film like Aliens, which I could easily watch from start to finish and enjoy the whole ride.
-
I don't care that the story has been done 100 times, really, I don't. I just didn't like it because it was boring. I not only couldn't connect with the characters, I actually hated most of them and wanted them to just go away. Everyone was a walking stereotype: the hard-ass bloodthirsty general with a scar, the mindless scowling soldiers, the spiritual "natives" who are great warriors but have primitive weapons.
The effects weren't even that good. That's the part I can't understand. There were a few moments in Pandora that were beautiful, but mostly it was cartoony and oversaturated, and the practice of blurring the background or foreground (a traditional 2D trick to focus your attention) ruined the 3D effect. The CGI 3D was good (not as good as, say Beowulf, though) but the live-action 3D was TERRIBLE. The scene with the soldiers prepping for the final battle looked like 200 cardboard cutouts standing in front of a backdrop. Every time a new animal came on the screen, all I could think was "Oh, gee, another animal with an extra pair of wings or legs. How original."
I went into the movie expecting a blah story, 2-dimensional characters, but good visuals, and I was STILL disappointed.
But yes, it was better than Indy 4 and the Star Wars prequels. This doesn't make me mad. I was never really a Star Wars fan, and while I loved Indy I wasn't expecting #4 to be that good. There's a time and a place, and it has come and gone, unfortunately.
"At least its not Michael Bay spending 300mil on blurry bullshit." Haha, okay, that's true!!! :) -
but I guarantee they will plug their USB ponytails into a spacefish/spacewhale/spaceporpoise that they ride and will be able to breathe underwater
-
Apr 21, 2010 10:05:47 AM CDT
I also think it's funny he thinks he can throw water in the mix
by jackslater4
but make it cheaper than the last one. I believe he is straight up lying to ths studios.
-
Apr 21, 2010 10:11:49 AM CDT
boring,but it could only be better than that first piece of shit
by thedannerdaliel
-
*LOL* You're probably right. I had the same thought... most of the people who hated Avatar will still be in line to see Avatar 2. Personally, I probably won't. Like I said, I was bored out of my mind during the first one. Now, if the reviews come in saying that he's done a bit more in the story and character department, I might check it out.
-
You guys need a life
-
Now, I LIKE T2, but it was a big letdown for me coming off the utter magnificence of The Terminator. All kinds of stupid plotholes and mostly, kid-friendly PG BULLSHIT!"The Terminator is scary, let's make him Old Yeller instead!" Fucking BRILLIANT! *eyeroll*Plus it just repeats the first film too often like the semi truck chase and ending in a factory, etc.I also think the "No fate but what we make" retcon is some fucking bullshit.But most of all, cameron just tosses aside the rules he set in place in the first movie. What the fuck happened to "Surrounded by living tissue. I didn't build the fucking thing!"? Exactly WHAT PART OF THE T-1000 IS LIVIVNG TISSUE?There's tons of other stuff like Robert Patrick glowering from under his eyebrows (why the fuck would a machine do that?), Guns and fucking Roses, a kid I want to swat the spit out of whining through the whole movie with his fucking emo-hair in his eye, a terminator that smiles, gives the thumbs up sign, apologizes and doesn't follow direct orders, etc.
-
Thank you for providing both the sticks and the dead horse.
-
UNDA DA SEA...
-
Keep whining bitches.
-
"most of the people who hated Avatar will still be in line to see Avatar 2. Personally, I probably won't."
Lol, sure. You're contradicting yourself- in the next sentence no less. It's like all the people that whined about how bad Transformers was. Amazing the sequel did so well, huh? Why could that be? -
in the first movie. It was to cover up the fact that his eye got fucked up getting run over by a fucking truck! he had to cut that shit out with an exacto knife!In T2 he puts shades on because.....I don't know, he wants to be all GQ and shit? Yeah, terminators should be real concerned with looking stylish. UGH!Also, Cameron went abso-fucking-lutely NUTS with the blue filters on T2. The original is a dar, gritty, film noir. T2 looks like a fuckin' cartoon by comparison.I've noticed people get all weepy about some sort of personal connection with T2 which completely blinds their objectivity. I swear the only reason is because that's the one they saw first. If they would have seen the original first it would have been a very different story.
-
If anyone keeps depicting, from film to film, same ethnicity, nationality, and gender as the bad guy he's making a point who he sees the villain as in real life. Cameron has even mentioned his hatred of Corporate Americans and American military in his most recent interviews. It's no different than those early movie industry westerns always portraying Native Americans (Indians) as villains. As to having Jake suddenly change sides (which is a Hollywood unoriginal story thread), Cameron is just telling the audience that they can change and agree by killing their own kind (like the Indian scouts working for the US Calvary hunting and killing other Indians), cliche.
-
dude, the time machine was only good for living tissue when t-800 was the norm. who says by the time t-1000 got built that the machine hasnt perfected the time machine to be used for liquid metal?
anyway, this thread is for avatar. i think that film alone gives us enough reason for bashing, so why dont we just stick to that.
and ghostball: i feel exactly like you. exactly. -
the sunglasses are part of what made Arnie's terminator iconic in the first movie.like the 'i ll be back' line which was also used in teh sequel.now if your problem is that there is no logical explanation in the movie, for Arnie to wear the sunglasses,then you should stop watching movies.
The blue filters were used because Cameron is a big lover of oceanic life.he liked it,i liked it,you dont like it,its only personal taste. -
Everyone throws the numbers around in defense of Avatar, but if you look at the top 20 grossing movies of all time, you also have POTC 2, Transformers 2, 2 of the 3 Star Wars prequels, Spider-man 3 and the torture porn fairy tale Passion of the Christ. Not to mention a huge factor of the gross was from inflated IMAX 3-D tickets. So what point exactly are you trying to prove?
-
the only thing i can say is this:
2.7 BILLION DOLLARS, BITCHES -
until that point of time Skynet might have improved the time-traveling.Besides didnt Kyle say in the first movie,that the only time-machine in existence in his future was destroyed by the resistance after he used it? so how comes in the sequel and there are new time-travels? simple.Skynet built a new and better time-machine.end of line.
-
Just needs Michael Biehn to reprise his role from The Abyss
-
So the whole "Their defense grids were smashed, we'd won" line from the original should be ignored in favor of your pathetic "they just designed and built a new time travel machine while the resistance was blasting the shit out of Skynet" theory?
-
after all he was going to play Quaritch in Avatar.And Paxton would have been a welcomed addition.
-
You liked Avatar, good for you. So I guess Hannah Montana and Justin Bieber are your favorites too? How about American Idol and Dancing with the Stars? Because numbers wise they're all the Avatars of their industries. By your rationale they must be good. You a big Stephanie Meyer/Twilight fan? Top selling books, must be good.
-
in the first movie,after it had already lost the war.Kyle explains that to Sarah when she asks him why it doesnt kill her son in the future.And Kyle says that they had already won,so his death wouldnt change the finalized outcome of the war.He even said that they learned about Skynet's plans and the time-machine in the last moment,so yes its very clearly stated in the first film that Skynet built the machine after he lost the war.
-
at the end of the day thats what matters.trash it,burn it,kill it but at the end of the day the rest of the planet doesnt give a fuck about your opinion.it hurts heh?
-
Skynet could design and build a time machine that didn't operate the only way they could do it 5 minutes ago. Despite the fact that the team was actually INSIDE SKYNET BLOWING IT THE FUCK UP!Let me ask you something...are you a fan of the Star Wars prequels?
-
Are you "guys" gonna fight about it for those 2 years...the movie itself will only last about 3 hours at the most. When you add up the hours people will spend talking about it on these talkbacks, it will equal several weeks...if you include the amount of time refreshing the talkbacks to read more tired commentaries.
-
Needs more tit.
-
I don't care what the rest of the planet thinks, I'm smart enough to recognize a bad movie buried under a flashy gimmick. But I see grown up debate is out of your reach, so you just keep on repeating your only point. Lol.
-
as a child, you know, before she got all trained up and knew what was coming and shit....was why again?And just so we're clear, you really liked Peter Parker's emo-hair in Spider-Man 3 right?
-
You do understand that in the first movie Kyle never said that they destroyed Skynet but only the defense grid,he never explained what exactly was this defense grid and he never said how much time it took for them to destroy the grid.
So your assumption of what really happened in the future is just that: assumption.
would you like to hear my personal understanding of what happened in the future? -
2.7 BILLIONS DOLLARS YOU LOSERS.MOUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
-
Yes, it was sarcasm.
I am saying that to miss the significance of the photo at the end of the terminator - it is a watermark demonstrating to the viewer that we are witnessing a single timeline inside a loop - is equivalent to shrugging at the end of Planet of the Apes and remarking that the statue you see on the beach looks similar to the one in New York, but doesn't prove that the planet is in fact earth.
To do so is to miss the clear signs the filmmaker put into the movie, and/or to be willfully perverse.
The Terminator is a story set in a single timeline universe with a loop. In that universe, time travel does not create alternate futures. There was never a version of 1984 without Reese and the terminator cyborg.
To misunderstand that is to misunderstand the movie. -
the photo is not a proof that fate in T1 is predestined.It is a proof that a circle exists in the timeline,but in no way it is a proof that the circle can not be broken.
Thats what are the events in T2,one more circle but this time Cameron explored the idea that maybe there is a possibility that this circle can be broken and change fate.After all,there is no apparent proof or even hint by the end of the movie,that the future was changed,only the hope that the man is master of his destiny. -
Yes, thank you James - humans suck. We get it.
Can the sequel actually have a story about stuff people would care about? -
"the photo is not a proof that fate in T1 is predestined.It is a proof that a circle exists in the timeline,but in no way it is a proof that the circle can not be broken."
The only way you can avoid this conclusion is to say that the photo looks identical *through amazing, staggering, incredible coincidence*. And to decide that the film-makers put it in just to make you think you were inside a loop when you weren't.
This would be the same as deciding that the kid at the airport at the end of 12 Monkeys is not in fact James Cole as a young kid, but just some random kid who looks exactly like him. Or like concluding that the statue at the end of POTA was NOT the Statue of Liberty, but a different object that just happened to look identical, by coincidence.
You have the latitude to draw that conclusion if you like, but it is an amazingly perverse reading of the movie.
If you witness an enormously complex system that is seen to be in state X, changes, changes some more, and after many years of changes ends up back in state Y which is 100% identical to state X, there are two possibilities:
1. This is a deterministic system, and you have just witnessed a loop.
2. It was just mindblowing coincidence that the state was repeated. The kind of thing that ought to have taken a trillion years, but instead happened in forty.
If it is (1) you have just witnessed, then the system will never break out of the loop. It cannot do so. It is a fundamental property of the system. If state X generated state X+1, then state Y will generate state Y+1, with X = Y, and X+1 = Y+1. The same exact sequence of states will play out again. -
I don't need you to spin me a yarn that somehow makes Eddie Furlong's hair cool, or Guns N Roses good or wearing shades at night by a TOTALLY DIFFERENT TERMINATOR somehow a good plan. It's all bullshit. You know it, I know it. You want to tell yourself stories to ease the pain go right ahead but leave me the fuck out of it.
-
in defense of Avatar. All you're doing is stating that the general filmgoing public are sheep, blinded by sheer spectacle, and you're no different. I'll just finish by saying if you ever want to have a real grown up conversation, I'll be here.
-
your pathetic ass.NEEEEEXT.
-
my perspective:
2.7 BILLION DOLLARS LALALALALALA -
You are seriously going to use the box office returns to show how good a movie is? I suppose you were upset at the fact that GI Joe, Transformers 2, of Twilight (just to name a few) weren't Oscar nominated for best picture? There are plenty of films that tank at the box office that are great movies, and even more shit on film reels that turn out to be block busters.
-
If Skynet was so unobstructed in a second time machine they magically figured out how to operate in a completely different way, why only send 1 T-1000? Why not send it to Sarah when she was a child now that the T-800 identified which sarah it was? And since now no living tissue is even fucking required, WHY NOT SEND BACK A FUCKING A-BOMB?THE. SHIT. DOESN'T. MAKE. FUCKING. SENSE.
-
When he grows up he'll understand.
-
The war was lost, the humans won, Skynet was smashed and their hail mary was to send a terminator back in time to try and get them out of their mess. That terminator failed, so their hail mary didn't work. They lost the game. So how was it that they were able to take the time to construct, let alone improve, a new time machine? Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie, but the inconsistencies are not lost on me.
-
'One of the pleasures of the movies is that they transport us, as Neytiri does with Jake, into imaginary realms, into Eden and over the rainbow to Oz.
If the story of a paradise found and potentially lost feels resonant, it’s because “Avatar” is as much about our Earth as the universe that Mr. Cameron has invented. But the movie’s truer meaning is in the audacity of its filmmaking.
Few films return us to the lost world of our first cinematic experiences, to that magical moment when movies really were bigger than life (instead of iPhone size), if only because we were children. Movies rarely carry us away, few even try. They entertain and instruct and sometimes enlighten. Some attempt to overwhelm us, but their efforts are usually a matter of volume. What’s often missing is awe, something Mr. Cameron has, after an absence from Hollywood, returned to the screen with a vengeance.' -
I mean, seriously, WTF?
-
I am not talking about replacing the loop with another loop.I am talking about breaking the loop permanently and create a new different future from the one that is pre-created by the loop.
Example: Sarah Connor is pregnant waiting in the gas station to fuel her jeep.I go there and i blast her head off with a magnum .Did i change the future or not? Did i break the loop? did i create a new loop? When i killed her,did she vanish from existence? did i vanish from existence? what happens? These are questions which are in no way answered by the photo.The photo proves that a loop exists but it is not an evidence that the loop is unbreakable. -
from Gorton's,Star kist, chicken of the sea,ski doo,etc. Jim Camarine's obsession with the sea will not put this ass in seat.he's so fucking done.
-
So giving praise to Avatar for being so incredibly successful is totally appropriate. It's going to pass 3 billion world-wide by the time it's done and that's just BEYOND ridiculous. Very, VERY successful. However, if it made three dollars, it would not say anything more or less about the QUALITY of the film than making 3 billion. As I've recently pointed out, some films don't even make it to theaters anymore. I've seen quite a few of them in the last few years that I thought were great! But their box office total was exactly zero. Really, it's the same old "popular doesn't mean it's good argument". I loath, nay DESPISE Lady Caca. Just a pure boiling rage of unfettered hatred. Can't fucking stand her. But A LOT of people clearly dig her shit. *shrug* I still stand in the middle regarding Avatar. I liked it a lot - saw it in the theater twice because I took family the second time. But I don't LOVE it. I don't think it's the greatest movie of all time. Just the most successful.
-
The ending really left no hint, nor potentual of a sequel.What we dont need is another 'Star Wars" trilogy.Next
-
So I understand his obsession. The ocean is cool. It's like outer space, but a lot closer. I'm sure Cameron's take on undersea life on Pandora will be amazing, espeically in 3D.
-
Did you watch it all the way through? I'd say it was CLEAR AS FUCK a sequel was coming. Besides, Cameron has had a trilogy in mind since before he started production. It's how he sold the massive investment in new technology to Fox. I thought this was common knowledge by now.
-
it doesn't really seem logical to make a sequel, when the movie allready had a begining a middle and a finale. lemme guess, the RDA comes back stronger than ever to fully retake pandora and it's up to the navis lead by jake to once again defend the "sacred' tree? Aww fuck this tired bullshit.The ending in which Jake's spirit has fully merged with the naviesque body, had set the tone for a complete story, but i tend to forget that this is hollywood in which creativity is easily sacrificed for the cash cow. i.e. milking a franchise to death. The new technology you speak of was supposed to be utilized in the Battle angel movie, however with a sequel annouced for avatar(d) B A is left on the back burner, possibly on indefinate hold.I dunno know about you, but i'll pass on the second coming which will be avatar 2: hydro bugaloo
-
I have to ask what part of the ending gave you an idea that there was a planned sequel? I don't remember anything standing out that made me think that one was being planned.
-
The Alien movies, endings. Indiana Jones movies, endings. Bond movies, endings. Even the Harry Potter films that you KNOW are going to have a sequel have had pretty solid endings. I could go on, but I think you get the point. The only movies in recent memory that were clearly open ended were the first two LOTR films. There was definitely talk of a trilogy before Avatar was released. More importantly, though, you guys REALLY can't see where there would be need for a sequel? Or where he could go with a sequel? Besides the ocean, the other tribes, the other moons and/or planets in the system, he could also take it out into open space or back to Earth. Tons of sequel possibilities.
-
these arent sequels in the proper sense of the word. they will be stand alone films. but will feature different parts of pandora. part one was all about the Jungle and the N'avi. part two will be about the oceans of pandora. which may hint at a larger conflict between the n'avi themselves.
-
personal explanation,although you are too stubborn to understand it:
We are in the future.Humans destroy the defense forces of Skynet.His main army,his construction factories,his control points.But they havent destroyed him yet and there is a lot of clean up to do.So while the humans advance towards his HQ,Skynet knows that he has lost the war and his eventual destruction is a matter of time.So he thinks of the time-travel plan.He only has to build the technology,since time-travel theories already exist from the humans.
Now you will say to me: But ominus how much time does the Resistance need to discover Skynet and destroy him? Well how much time have you spent in Iraq,since you destroyed Housein's defense grid?
And dont forget that Skynet is a super-genius AI.Creating time-travel technology shouldnt take too long for such a mastermind,especially when time-travel theories already exist.
So he creates the TDU in some remote construction factory or laboratory,the Resistance finds about his plans,they go there,they send Kyle and they destroy the time-machine.
Now when the above events occur,Skynet immediately understands that his plan failed,because nothing changed exactly at the point of time when T800 entered the time-machine.
So he immediately starts designing another,better time-machine which will allow to send back in time his prototype T-1000 which he was also designing while creating the fist time-machine.
I dont know how much time passes between the events of the first and the second time-machine,maybe 2 weeks,a month,2 months,who knows.But the Resistance knows the plans of Skynet and they are more prepared this time.Eventually Skynet builds the new time-machine which is able to transport a non-living being into the past BUT the laws of physics allow the time-jump to be done in specific past time-points related to the future time-points.if you think that this sounds ridiculous then i have 2 words for you: QUANTUM LEAP.
so if you are on 1/2/2010 your maximum time-jump to the past is until 5/3/1980,and if you are on 5/6/2010 your maximum time-jump is until 3/4/1990 something like that.
To put it simply,Skynet has lost the war,but until he gets totally destroyed he has the chance to send his terminators back in time until he manages to kill Kyle or Sarah.So from the point he acknowledges that he has lost the war,until the point that his brain is destroyed he had 2 (i dont count T3)chances to sent his machines back to the past.But because of the laws of physics,the time lengths between the past time point and the future time point was decreased every time.In fact that could easily explain why in T3 the T-X time-jumped when John was grown up and not before or during the time-points of T1 or T2.This also means that ie in a new T4,Skynet sends a new Terminator just before his brain is destroyed completely and loses forever,back to time but only at the time-point when the war of the Resistance against the machines starts.
so there thats how i perceive the whole time-travel thing in the T universe.I dont give a fuck what you think of it,its sufficient for me to logically understand the connection between the events throughout the time-line,i am just killing time here. -
It had a beginning, middle and end right? How about Batman Begins or Star Trek: The Motion Picture or Superman: The Movie? If a movie doesn't have a beginning, a middle and an end...it's not a movie!
-
"We are in the future.Humans destroy the defense forces of Skynet.His main army,his construction factories,his control points.But they havent destroyed him yet and there is a lot of clean up to do.So while the humans advance towards his HQ,Skynet knows that he has lost the war and his eventual destruction is a matter of time.So he thinks of the time-travel plan.He only has to build the technology,since time-travel theories already exist from the humans."So.....you think Skynet is a person? Fucking christ no wonder you're so mixed up!
-
That would create a loop on it's own. If skynet were to succeed in killing Kyle, Sarah, or John then the future where it would need to send the Terminator back would never have happened. So it wouldn't know that it needed to send the Terminator back at all and never would. It would then loop back to Sarah and Kyle hooking up and having John. John leading the resistance that fights skynet. And Skynet sending another Terminator back to kill him. It would just loop over and over again.
-
Riding a big fucking seahorse?
-
unless he has some crazy shit imagined for the underwater portion, it will only look like the surface of Pandora (which in itself was heavily inspired by his Under-the-Sea fetish). Lame shit.
-
thank you for pawing your ass.NEEEXT.
-
There's your motivation for a sequel right there.
They have to wait for a new home tree to grow, which will take thousands of years.
So, what do they do in the meantime?
And how does staying jacked-in to his avatar full-time affect Jake, physiologically and mentally?
How long can the backup avatar machine stay operational?
Plenty of stuff to go on. -
Out of the various illogical things that you made in that post, let's just point out that you said that the "no fate" speech is not in The Terminator.
John gave me a message for you. Made me memorize it. 'Sarah"...this is the message... 'Sarah, thank you. For your courage through the dark years. I can't help you with what you must soon face, except to tell you that the future is not set... there is no such thing as Fate, but what we make for ourselves by our own will.
Basically, you're a liar who actually doesn't know the source materiel that you're quoting. At all. Poseur. Fraud. -
Apr 21, 2010 1:53:57 PM CDT
But I'm sure you'll say things like 4D and numerical equations
by tall_boy66
Because, obviously, if you start throwing out something like that, it means that you are correct and smart and it isn't some deep-seated need to prove your own intelligence by vaguely quoting numerical equations. I submit this to you: that disregarding an entire film based on what you perceive to be a plot hole does a disservice to the entire medium of film and all of the various things that go into making a film. Because you're beholden to some rule that you made up in your head by inferring from what came from ZERO dialogue from The Terminator. Hey, you know what's funny? From the actual dialogue from The Terminator?
the future is not set... there is no such thing as Fate, but what we make for ourselves by our own will.
Do you see that? It says The Future Is Not Set. From an actual character. An actual plot point.
So you're wrong and you don't understand how time travel works in the series and you never will. -
It's made pretty obvious that chuck is on earth.he says something like * Oh god , I'm home,,,,I've been home all the time...You blew it up...maniacs ..damn them , damn them all to hell!*Theres not much room for confusion there.At first I thought the post referred to burtons effort...it that case yeah...there is no explaination , why a statue thats on eath , is on a planet millions of miles away
-
but without John as leader of the resistance there is no need for Skynet to send back in time any terminator because he has won the war.So the time-line continues without any loop.
But thats not my point,the point is that we dont know if it is all possible to kill Sarah.The photograph indicates that Sarah will be saved,but does this also indicate that she will be saved infinitely in the loop? if i try to kill her with a magnum,will something prevent me from doing it? if she falls from a 40m building will she survive? -
For some reason, even though I liked Avatar (it's hard not to like something that beautiful), I can't really stir much excitement for a sequel. The movie seemed padded as it was. Perhaps Cameron can deliver a much more complex story that doesn't rely on pretty visuals alone, but I kinda doubt it right npw.
-
but they might be occupied by other Navi clans.
-
And your strategy is to say "I PWNED YOU AGAIN!"Keep up your laughable fanfic bullshit though."And then the person known as Skynet built a giant space arc and he uploaded himself to it so he could go invade another galaxy. Finding another galaxy with intelligent life would be no problem for an AI supercomputer because humans already had the theories.....blah.......blah......blah"But just so we're clear, this guy named Skynet is so smart and resourceful that he can create 2 time machines in a short time, not to mention amazingly future-tech like sentient liquid fucking metal....but it can't root out a few ragtag humans? And keep in mind that the T-800 WAS BRAND FUCKING NEW! Reese SAYS THIS IN THE MOVIE! But the person known as Skynet can jump from essentially the same terminators he had done before but with living skin to far-out alien technology like the T-1000?Dude, you're so full of fucking shit it's pathetic. But go ahead and spin us another yarn about what "obviously" was happening offscreen between Terminator movies. *eyeroll*
-
No, you're simply mistaken about that speech. You got it wrong. Here's what you said it was:
"Sarah, thank you. For your courage through the dark years. I can't help you with what you must soon face, except to tell you that the future is not set... there is no such thing as Fate, but what we make for ourselves by our own will."
That is not the dialogue from The Terminator. Here is the correct dialogue:
"Thank you, Sarah, for your courage through the dark years. I can't help you with what you must soon face, except to say that the future is not set. You must be stronger than you imagine you can be. You must survive, or I will never exist."
There is no line about "no fate but what we make for ourselves".
I know The Terminator back to front. You appear not to. -
Ugg, it's not even worth arguing over. From reading your posts you're half stringing time travel paradox theories together to try to fit your argument.
-
I predict that you will now attempt to backtrack and say that your claim was that Reese said "the future is not set", as though that were the dialogue under debate. You will note that it is not. :)
"No fate but what we make for ourselves." The most famous line that John Connor said to Sarah via Reese, according to T2. And it isn't even in the movie. John never said it, and Reese never said it. It's a retcon.
Leaving aside the issue of you ranting at somebody you accuse of not knowing the dialogue and then "quoting" dialogue that you appear to have made up, there is a separate issue of the semantic claim of "the future is not set". After all, you can say that, yes, TallBoy got the quote wrong and embarrassed himself in public, BUT the semantic claim being made amounts to the same thing, i.e. the claim is that The Terminator must be set in a non-deterministic universe because John Connor claims that "the future is not set".
The simple answer here is that John Connor is giving a pep talk. He's not a time travel scientist. Maybe he believes that the future can be changed. Maybe he doesn't. But he has no claim on truth. Trust the tale, not the teller. The tale shows us, through the photo, that if John believes the future can be changed, then John was simply wrong. He's a soldier, not a scientist. Like Reese, he "didn't build the fucking thing".
My own take is that as John knows that Reese is his father, he must strongly suggest the loop, but he isn't taking any chances. In any case, his "free will" in deciding the speech is questionable; if he's in a deterministic universe (and he is), he was always going to come up with those words and say them. Their truth relationship with the world is irrelevant. -
Apr 21, 2010 2:12:17 PM CDT
Thank you for prompting me to find the script online...
by revenge_of_fett
http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Terminator.html Scene 157REESE
...it had no choice.
The defensive grid was
smashed. We'd taken the
mainframes...
We'd won. Taking out
Connor then would make no
difference. Skynet had to
wipe out his entire exist-
ence. We captured the lab
complex. Found the...what-
ever it was called...the
time-displacement equipment.
The Terminator had already
gone through. They sent two
of us to intercept, then
zeroed the whole place."Notice how he says "We captured THE lab complex", you know as in THERE IS ONLY ONE FUCKING LAB? Note how he says "The zeroed (AS IN FUCKING DESTROYED) the whole place.feel that uncomfortable lump in your ass? That's my fuckin' boot. -
The "no fate line" does appear in one form in a scene cut from the final version of The Terminator. But it isn't spoken by John Connor (via Reese) or by Reese himself. It's spoken by Sarah. She contemplates trying to change the future.
Cameron/Wisher decided not to put that scene in the movie, just as they decided not to put in the "birth of Cyberdyne" as a double loop-reinforcement. There's also another loop element from the original script that was left out of the final version: when the cyborg kills the other Sarahs, he strips one of their legs open. Reason? He's looking for a metal pin that Sarah was known (from medical records) to have in one of her legs, as a confirmation that the "true" Sarah had been killed.
At the end of the story, after the fight in the factory, Sarah's injured leg is fixed up using a metal pin. Loop, loop, loop. One version of history.
However, Cameron and Wisher probably felt that the photo was a sufficient device to demonstrate to the audience that we were witnessing a single timeline loop, not a new version of history. So the metal pin element was dropped. -
FTW...
-
... looked like sea flora and creatures on land. So, how will the actual sea creatures look like? Like land animals and trees in the sea?
-
Sure other films warranted a sequel, from Star Wars,The Godfather,Terminator and Alien .But there is absolutely nothing worth digging up again as far as Avatar is concerned.The beginning,middle and end was all within the 2 hour film as it told complete story without a need to make a trilogy.And not all sequels work BTW:Matrix Revolutions, Alien 3,spiderman 3, Another 48 Hours, Escape from LA,terminator 3,Godfather 3..shall I go on?
-
Thank you for highlighting another serious problem with T2.
The entire premise of The Terminator is that Skynet is forced to attempt its "elaborate scheme" as a last-ditch hail-mary pass. "Their defense grid was smashed. We'd won!"
Everything in that movie suggests real desperation on the part of Skynet. It has to assemble this plan hastily with the fragments of information it has available. It has no little information about Sarah Connor that it actually has to try killing all the Sarah Connors in LA systematically. This is a key element of the movie! The premise is that Skynet cannot attack John directly, so it contrives an ingenious assassination attempt at one remove: kill his mother, with an experimental new device, sent in its dying moments.
T2 casually ditches all that. T2 suggests a future in which Skynet has lots of time, knowledge of John's location ten years later, a second TDE device, and a far more advanced terminator available. None of that fits with the scenario we're presented with in The Terminator.
You may like the effects, admire the style, appreciate the dialogue. But T2 is one grand retcon.
As somebody noted above, its more like a remake, for a mass audience, with a somewhat different premise. It doesn't work as a sequel. -
"It has no little information about Sarah Connor"
Sorry, that should be "so little information". -
that Einstein can become a great strategist and Rommel a great physicist?
or let me ask another question: If Skynet is stupid then how did he manage to build the terminators,cause nuclear holocaust,build the K-H,the tanks,the laser guns,the time-machine while at the same time his ass was kicked? let me answer that for you: he was super intelligent but he was not human.
You say short time,and i ask you how short? one month,one year? how short? and i gave you the perfect example of the Iraq situation and you ignored it (geez i wonder why)
The T800 were new but they were already fighting the Resistance before the TDU event.They were not revealed then when Kyle made the time-jump but we can safely assume that they were fighting the resistance even before Skynet lost the war.Kyle himself says that ,when he describes to Sarah how they are made,and ofc there is the dream sequence in the future.
So again the time interval between the creation of T800 and T1000 is not an issue,because we it has not been set in the movie.Its not like Skynet made T800 and the next day made T1000,but we can assume that there was plenty of time to create T1000 and a better machine,maybe Skynet had a year to do this,who knows.
That also explains another fact in the film:if Skynet had created T1000 then why he didnt mass-produced it? he would have turned the tide of war.Well its simple: he could not mass produce it since there were no factories to build it,it was only a prototype and he was out of time.So he sends it back to time.
so there.you say its fanfic,i dont disagree but then again i havent seen you to diminish its reliability yet. -
LEAVE T2 ALONE! it's damn fine as is, plotholes(says you!) be damned.
now, let's get back to avatar bashing, shall we? -
Not that anybody cares, but here goes: I didn't like CAMERON going on talk shows, one in particular I think on NBC with Lauer, where he said, "Many critics were saying that this was just going to be a movie with special FX and no story, but now the critics and the audience are seeing that it has a wonderful story with a terrific romance..." Really, James? They saw that? Really? So we ALL agreed on that, is what you're saying? Because, honestly, that was the NUMBER ONE thing the critics and most complainers complained about when they saw it--the cliche, simple story. I never like it when a creator of anything tells you how you feel about his/her work.
-
FETT:
"I've noticed people get all weepy about some sort of personal connection with T2 which completely blinds their objectivity. I swear the only reason is because that's the one they saw first."
I tend to think that's a big factor as well. It may also be a part of the reason why the misunderstanding of The Terminator is so widespread. If T2 is the film you see first, you watch a story about time travel changing the future. The rules are established for you: "The Terminator is a franchise where people use time travel to change the future!"
If they subsequently watch The Terminator, they're already seeing it through that established prism. They end up concluding that, errr, the future COULD have been changed here, it just WASN'T, see? Even though that actually makes no sense. Time travel either changes the future, or it doesn't. Nothing is left in the balance. If time travel changes the future, then the cyborg changes the future by simple virtue of its arrival in 1984. Even if it decides to become a florist on Olympic Blvd, it has changed the future. And there is no chance that Sarah will end up having her photo taken in Mexico in that jeep with that dog nine months later in a way that's identical with what happened in the "previous version of history".
Sarah only ends up with that photo taken if NOTHING is different, i.e. there's only one version of history, and time travel just completes an existing loop.
But if you watch T2 first, there's a high risk that you misinterpret The Terminator. ESPECIALLY if you liked T2. People are very, very averse to being critical of something they have liked up until now, even in the face of new evidence that ought to make them question its qualities if they were impartial.
Of course, you can always fall back on the "Who cares if it makes sense or works as a sequel? It's a FUN POPCORN MOVIE!" kind of line. Just so long as anyone who does that concedes openly that continuity and logic are not essential for a movie to be a good movie. That's fine, that's a valid position to take. -
But Kyle was referring to all the information he had gathered until the point of time in the future when he does the time-jump.Which means that he has no fucking clue what happened after they destroyed the lab.
which means that after a while the Resistance in the future discovered another remote and hidden lab,for which they had no clue.
Is there any evidence in T1 which forbids the possibility that Skynet was clever enough to have another lab somewhere else? NO
Is there any evidence which supports the idea that there was another lab hidden somewhere else and was discovered after the time-jump event in T1? yes the whole T2 movie is the evidence.
see there mr FETT? still incapable to hurt the validity of my theory.FUCK YEAH. -
You need to get on your knees and suck the God Cameron's holy phallus harder and faster. When I saw this story I expected the talkback to rocket to #1 with a bullet. Suck harder nerds.
-
Is the photograph an evidence that the loop can not be broken yes or no?
Can Sarah Connor commit suicide?
If not, why? If yes,then does the loop breaks? pls give your answers.
You correctly say and i agree,that the photograph is an evidence of a loop.But is it also an evidence that the loop can not be broken by any kind of action? Thats what T2 explores,the idea of breaking the loop,it does not try to diminish at all the idea of the time-loop in the first movie. -
I guess the romance part worked because I think the girl sitting next to me started crying at the end of the finale fight scene between worthington and the general. Coincidentally I was chuckling to myself at that same moment.
-
Apr 21, 2010 2:49:47 PM CDT
Wow did you know how messed up the world is?
by winona_ryders_pussy_juice
this is shocking: www.infowars.com
-
While there is no 100% proof (there cannot be), everything in The Terminator points to it being written as a stand-alone story in which Skynet, defeated in the future, has one final play to make before it expires, and uses it to execute a desperate plan that it hopes will snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
It HAS been defeated. This is the entire premise of the movie. As Reese observes, "Taking out Connor then would make no difference. Skynet had to wipe out his entire existence!" This is not something that would be true if Skynet were still functioning in the future and able to continue waging its war. No, this is Dr Evil, his base overrun, leaping into the past in a desperate attempt to win by "cheating".
It is critical to the plot that Skynet has run out of time and must make do with what it has in order to hatch its plot: both equipment and information. Skynet has no more time to work with, and has no idea where John was in the past, so it instead decided to kill John's mother. Even here, it has only the barest of info: her name was Sarah Connor, she lived in LA in 1984. That's all it knows. That's all it's able to go on as it pulls the switch a minute before its base is overrun and it is destroyed.
This is the setup of The Terminator. If Skynet is still functioning in a reasonable state, or has multiple terminators, or has more time to play with, or has information on John's whereabouts later, THE EVENTS WE SEE IN THE MOVIE DO NOT MAKE SENSE.
Circumstantial supporting evidence:
"Nobody goes home. Nobody else comes through. It's just him - and me."
"The final battle would not be fought in the future. It would be fought here, in our present. Tonight."
You can argue that there is no PROOF that Skynet must have been defeated and could have gone on to build a second assassin, gather more info etc. But that essentially pisses on the premise we've been told is the case in the original. It's a retcon, certainly in spirit if not in terms of 100% provable logic. I mean, you can't PROVE that Charles Foster Kane wasn't an alien, so in principle you could make Kane II: Return to Mars, but that would be pretty disrespectful to the authorial intentions of the original. -
Apr 21, 2010 2:54:07 PM CDT
Will Jake Sully find an old safe in a sunken ship
by ben_richards_bomb_collar
And inside the safe is a drawing of a woman, who he spends the rest of the movie interviewing and hearing her story via flashback? And she reveals that the bad guy from the first movie is really his father. So he sends her away on a plane and tells her they don't amount to a hill of beans in this world. And then we find out what 'Rosebud' means.
-
"Is the photograph an evidence that the loop can not be broken yes or no?"
It is not 100% cast-iron proof, but it is overwhelmingly suggestive. The only other hypothesis is that the photo ends up the same by unbelievable coincidence, and that it has no significance in the movie, i.e. that Cameron showed two identical photos in "old 2029" and "new 1984" for no reason whatsoever. You can certainly decide to make that interpretation if you like.
"Can Sarah Connor commit suicide? If not, why?"
Excellent question.
To answer it requires a little bit of a gestalt shift. The question is not truly, "Can she?" so much as "Will she?" There is only one version of history, and the entirety of it has always existed. Therefore free will is something of an illusion, depending on how you define it.
When you were watching Star Wars for the first time, you might have thought that the Death Star might destroy Yavin. It seemed to be in the balance, with everybody having free will and the future uncertain. But, in fact, the movie had already been made and the outcome already certain. Your subjective lack of information makes you feel like everything is in flux, uncertain, that everything can happen. But if you pop the DVD out halfway through the movie, and hold it in your hands, you can see that it is static, fixed, and unchangeable. The end of the movie is already set. Unknown to you (yet), Yavin will never be destroyed.
Can Sarah contemplate suicide? Yes. Does it feel to her as though she has the power to end her own life? Yes. Will she, in fact, ever end her own life? No. Because of who she is, in this deterministic universe, with the state of the world as it is, she as an entity in that system will never commit suicide. 2029 already exists. The whole of history already exists, and has always existed, simultaneously. -
is that the movie is totaly set in the future. The movie was made and released in 1991, but the story is set in the future from the movie, it's set in 1995. How we know this? John Connor is a 10 years old boy, and he was born in 1985. Date of birth shows on the cop car electronic device that has fellony registrations. In it, we can see John Coonor's birthdate at the year 1985. So, T2 is a movie set in the future from the time of the movie's release. It also makes it the movie with the most accurate depiction of the future (the year 1995) in the whole history of cinema.
-
I'm passing on more of this heavy handed, self righteous bullshit.
-
I believe it's actually set in 1994. Not that this makes any difference to your point; just being a geek-pedant.
-
Wikipedia claims 1995. But I distinctly remember Cameron saying that it was set in 1994 when he was doing promo interviews in the summer of 1991.
-
Reading this talkback, I am so glad I am not a conservative. These people can’t watch a movie, pickup a book, or read a newspaper without fearing some liberal conspiracy to attack their worldview - a worldview that they can only maintain by constructing an elaborate alternate universe for nearly everything. They have their own news network, their own Wikipedia, their own history books, even their own bible for crying out loud. Why don’t one of you losers found a company to re-edit movies like the religious nutjobs out there and remove any offensive, evil liberal material? What a sad, pathetic existence it must be to go through life without regard for either history or reality.
-
I agree with you one hundred percent about "The Terminator."
It's a standalone film, period.
The second, third, and fourth (yechh!) films make no sense in the context of what was concretely established in the first film.
I just wanted to chime in and let you know there ARE talkbackers taking your side.
The only Terminator film I own and occasionally watch is the first one. It's absolutely classic. The second film is enjoyable, I'll admit, but unnecessary. The other two films push toward being abortions. -
I often wonder if Cameron himself knew that T2 didn't really make sense but felt it would be much more commercially viable than a "true sequel". If so, he may well have been right. And he'd just come off the back of The Abyss, which had been a labor of love for him but which had tanked (at least partially) at the box office. He was probably never so focused on creating a hit in his life.
-
I enjoyed Avatar at the cinema.
However, I don't feel any compulsion to get it on DVD/Blu-Ray. Does anyone else? It just didn't really linger in my mind in terms of its themes, scenes and dialogues. As others have observed, it felt like a fun theme park ride. -
Hopefully big Jim will write a better script and CG Sam Worthington some decent acting skills. The guy was like 95% CGI, and STILL he can't fucking act.
Jim Cameron does spectacular cinema like no-one on Earth, but he hasn't worked with decent actors since THE ABYSS. And before I get rebutted, yeah I though TITANIC was overblown melodramatic shit. Technically awesome, but the story? Pure schmaltz. And a death scene that has only been beaten by the Trinity scene in MATRIX REVOLUTIONS.
I love me some James Cameron, but for all the pretty SFX, you have to admit - AVATAR was pretty derivative. -
...just what state the rest of the human race is in at the time.
Is the human race actually dying, as Jake mentions at one point?
Or is The Company (and by association, the Human Race itself) just greedy and operating purely from a profit motive?
The answer to that question will have a big influence on my ultimate judgement of this story Cameron's written for us. -
Until they release it in Real-D, so I can buy Real-D lenses and watch in in 3D in full colour in my own home, then FUCK FOX and FUCK THIS AVATAR TRIPLE DIPPING SHIT. I've had enough of this shit from Lucas, now Cameron's doing it? FUCK FOX! 3d Real-D AVATAR or nothing. And no, I'm not buying a fucking 3D TV to watch it on either. Talk about a pointless gadget...
-
Very eloquent arguements there. I completely get where you're coming from and agree wholeheartedly. But then, I prefer the first movie to any of the subsequent sequels. Cheers!
-
"But is it also an evidence that the loop can not be broken by any kind of action? Thats what T2 explores,the idea of breaking the loop,it does not try to diminish at all the idea of the time-loop in the first movie."
I understand what you're saying. It seems intuitive enough. However, I believe that it is based upon reasoning that turns out to be faulty when inspected closely.
Your hypothesis is (I think) that there is a 1984-2029 loop, but that this loop could be broken by something later on, e.g. a time-traveler from 2035. Sounds plausible, huh?
Here's why it doesn't work.
If you buy into The Terminator showing you a loop in a deterministic system, you need to accept that 1984, 1985, and 2029 exist simultaneously. This is the only way that 2029 can influence 1984, in a single timeline story: 1984 seems subjectively prior to 2029, but in fact, it isn't, when you take a step backwards. The events of 2029 have "already happened" when part of them influence the state of May 12th 1984. Indeed, the whole of history is already written and has "already happened". (You need to be slightly careful with language; in effect we're using the words "before", "already" etc. at two different levels. From Sarah's POV in 1984, 2029 has not yet happened, but for a 4D deity looking at the static structure, 1984 and 2029 exist simultaneously.)
This means, by extension, that 2035 has also already happened. So has 2100. Everything that can influence 1984 already exists, and its truth-relationships with 1984 *already hold*.
So there can be nothing beyond 2029 that can influence 1984 (or 1985) that has not ALREADY exerted its influence. No alarms and no surprises. If a journey is going to be made from 2035 to 1984, then that will influence 1984 from the outset. There is not one 1984 with no influence from 2035 and one 1984 WITH an influence from 2035. There is only 1984, with all influences from all possible points in history already factored in. That's why there was never a version of history without Reese, never one in which John had a different father.
So you cannot ever "break out of the loop" any more than you can break off into a different version of events while watching The Godfather. You can imagine different possible endings (especially if you're watching it for the first time) but only one version of the movie is ever going to play when that DVD is in the machine. -
This would explain why, although I enjoyed T2 for the spectacle, I LOVED The Abyss for its story - proper plotting, believable characters, and actually a half-decent attempt at a moral - compared to AVATAR's heavy handed "humans are BAAAAD" prosetylising, or T2's confused convolutions.
-
BOOOO!! BOOOOO!! SAVE THE PLANET!!! You can start by not making those dumb plastic glasses.
-
I'm grabbing a new 42" television on Friday, so I'm definitely interested in buying the Blu-ray of "Avatar." It's not the only Blu-ray I'll be buying, but it's high on my list.
Interesting you think of it as a "fun theme park ride," Kaitain. The propulsively bright colors and action have a lot to do with this, I'm sure. Which is cool.
Honestly, though, I found the film to be quite moving. The subtleties of it most people won't care about, I know, but I enjoy these things along with its major characters and themes.
The fact a bloodthirsty corporation gets its ass handed to it is exhilarating in a way I almost can't describe. Probably speaks to my state of mind after the Supreme Court a few months ago ruled that corporations now get "individual" rights under the law, meaning no holds barred on political spending or manipulation heading into the future.
Which terrifies me. Thus "Avatar" is a film I want to buy and see at home. -
it is dying because humans killed their Mother aka Earth.and even if that is not the case,nothing in the universe justifies their intent to wipe out other races in order to save their sorry asses.
-
Apr 21, 2010 4:12:19 PM CDT
the only reason and I state the only reason for a sequel is..
by emeraldboy
more money for fox and go for three in a rwo. he has two billion dollar grossing films in the bag if he can make a third one. he will do it.
-
I don't think Cameron properly worked out what he was trying to say at the ending. The aliens spared human civilization, but surely if humans WANT to destroy themselves it is our right to do so. It's our fucking planet - what right have the aliens to enforce themselves when it's not even their planet? So do the humans now live in peace under fear that the aliens will cause tidal waves if we threaten nuclear war? Doesn't that make the aliens tyrants of a sort? I just don't think Cameron thought through the ending at all.
-
"Honestly, though, I found the film to be quite moving."
Actually, I was suitably manipulated when I watched it. I was not at all unmoved by its deliberate, by-the-numbers machinations. I thought it was very well crafted in that respect.
It's more that after I left the cinema, I didn't think about it much. No images haunted me, no themes kept coming back to me in the following days. -
O.K. Kaiten I admire your enthusiasm over a nerdy non fiction action sci fi fluff film, and I read the first paragraph of your term paper on the amazing nuances of the T2 universe, but take it down a notch. No one is gonna read your diatribes and we need more posts, not 1 giant wall of text about a 1980's movie no one gives a shit about anymore. Well movies today are depressing to talk about so I can see why you'd want to talk about T2 and not Avatar, which totally sucked, but dude. know what im sayin
-
Apr 21, 2010 4:35:30 PM CDT
Although I ADORE The Abyss, I agree the moral is muddled
by revenge_of_fett
"You Earthlings are killing yourselves! That's awful! So we're gonna fucking KILL YOU ALL!"
-
Wasn't it a comedy? The dialogue and acting had me in stitches.
-
Aliens 2 and T2 are the only good films Cameron has made. The rest are technical marvels but fall far short in the plot/story/actors department.
-
John Connor is 9 years old in T2? I think the movie even makes a point he's 10, if memory serves. If 10, then it's set in 1995. Which was the year when GHOST IN THE SHELL was released. Which Cameron loved a lot.
-
The point of THE ABYSS is that the Earth is not just OUR planet, but of every creature that lives in it. In fact, the point of THE ABYSS is that the aliens were saving the Earth from human hubris. The very fact you called earth our planet that only us has any right to blow it up if we chose so proves you really lost the whole point of the movie THE ABYSS. There's an irony in there somewhere.
-
All you need is to go stroll around your nearest forest, and you will realise that it's not only humans who live on Earth. If anything, the aliens in THE ABYSS play on a higher moral playground, the one where they feel forced to destroy one race so that many many others can survive from man's wrongdoings. Is there a muddle moral there? Only from the point of view of a human who thinks he is has the god's given right to exploit and misuse the Earth for their one personal and selfish benefits. But from all other points, the moral is crystal clear. What the aliens are doing, to put it short, is to remove the cancer that is and will kill Earth. The cancer is us. From this perspective, the moral is simple and direct. It's one of the things in the movie that makes THE ABYSS one of Cameron's most Kubrickian movies. Which is kinda the point.
-
Conservatives are clearly crazy. 8 years of the Bush administration proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt, where they turned the whole USA into an asylum where the inmates runned the place.
-
I understand your reasoning. Perhaps there's no official truth of the matter.
Maybe Cameron said in the interview that it was set "ten years after the events of the first movie" and I surmised that it was 1994, but it's conceivable that the final scene of The Terminator is actually in early 1985. -
I understand what you are saying, but your point was not alluded to in the movie. When Bud is talking to the aliens, they show him TV clips of humans only - not animals or forests like you are suggesting. Surely Cameron would have made this clearer if his message was that "humans are the cancer" of animals and forests. But I didn't see that anywhere in the movie.
-
Cobbio don't go 42" go 46".
Seems like a small difference but those 4" are the difference between big and BIG! -
I hear you, Kaitain. The images I took home from "Avatar" weren't entirely overt or pulse-pounding the first time, either. Not sure why.
But the image of the mountainous old tree cracking, then slowly starting to fall as horrified Na'vi faces look skyward now basically haunts me.
As does the desperate, uncertain tone in Jake Sully's voice as he kneels and grasps the vine to implore an entity even he's not sure exists.
As does the moment a single Na'vi warrior (forgot his name, just his outstretched arms) finally leaps into the human mother ship's hold, gets violent, and against trained soldiers, sacrifices himself to prevent the wrapped explosives from falling and igniting planetary nerve-center doom.
It's quite moving, yes. I think so.
Which is why I'd like to buy the Blu-ray and see it again.
But that's just my take. -
Go 46", eh? It makes a big difference?
Sounds like you've had some experience here, so I'll definitely take your advice into consideration.
Thanks for the heads-up! -
Hmmm! Hammerheaded creatures, glow in the dark plants, animals with six legs and skinny tall blue people!! As imaginative as the artwork from a class of under ten year-olds. Still it matched the writing and lazy (if not obviously uncomfortable) performances by the actors. I guess people love bright colours and glowing stuff more than I imagined. If you really want to see amazing scenes, glowing stuff or incredible animals watch some of the amazing modern natural history documentaries. Cameron's team didn't get half way near to the stunning beauty nature has already given us on our planet.
-
All time travel stories break down quickly when you look at the "logic" behind them, because they end up in logical paradoxes. It's pretty funny when people try to explain how "this must be true" or "that cannot happen" because all of it breaks down once the rules of temporal cause-and-effect are violated. Don't take the stories so seriously, because seriously, they can never happen.
-
Kaitain, I've seen it. Really makes me wish I'd seen the film in 2D in the theater. I mentioned somewhere at AICN, maybe in this thread, that it has more green. Again, I only saw it in IMAX 3D. But watching it at home on DVD I distinctly notice more green across the entire color spectrum. Maybe it's just that the abundance of blue is less glaring when not watching it on the giant ass IMAX screen with 3D glasses on. But I gotta say, it looks freakin' incredible.
-
"All time travel stories break down quickly when you look at the "logic" behind them, because they end up in logical paradoxes."
No, that isn't the case at all. Only certain models of time travel logic even SUPPORT paradoxes. For example, if you have a model where going back in time creates a new branch that buds off from the first one, leaving the first intact and unaltered, you simply cannot have paradoxes. Also, in a single time line model, such as that seen in La Jetee, or Twelve Monkeys, or The Terminator, time travel does not alter the existing (single) history.
Only if you have a rewriting model, where you can actually alter the timeline from which you departed, can you have paradoxes. This model is used in e.g. Timecop and Back to the Future. It tends to be the sloppiest kind in its execution, with lots of hand-waving. -
...meets Avatar. A new crew is sent to find the precious unobtainium, but they go underwater to go unnoticed, but they also have orders to kill Jake Sully (Colonel Kurtz) who is worshipped by the natives as a God. Throw in some Jaws and Aliens in there....and you'll have one helluva movie! Listen, Tarantino does the cut and paste/mishmash of old 60's and 70's films...and now Cameron is doing the same for sci-fi...and I don't give a fuck as long as it's entertaining, and he can put his new fingerprints on it.
-
Returning to an earlier post of yours I missed:
"Example: Sarah Connor is pregnant waiting in the gas station to fuel her jeep.I go there and i blast her head off with a magnum .Did i change the future or not?"
This turns out to be the wrong question to ask. The FIRST question to ask is, "Is it possible for Sarah's head to be blown off with a magnum at the gas station in this narrative universe?"
And the answer is no. There is only one version of history, and Sarah does not have her head blown if with a magnum in it.
You are assuming the existence of total freedom of action in a world where that does not in fact exist. (It seems subjectively to everyone in it as though it does, but this is an illusion.)
Good questions, though. -
It may have been brought up, but there is a brief exchange in the first Terminator between Reese and Connor where she mockingly questions being 'the mother of the future' and he replies something to the effect "one possible future . . . I dont know tech stuff".
-
there wouldn't be an Avatar 2. There really is no need for it except to cash in again on the original's success. He should use his technology to tell a new story. And get somebody else to write the screenplay.
-
"one possible future . . . I dont know tech stuff"
He's right. He doesn't know tech stuff. -
I felt like there were about five of us when it actually came out. But all this criticism is heartening. It shows people are not just all rolling over for a tired story, cliched characters, lame dialogue, unremarkable CGI, etc...
-
A movie has to work on more than ONE level for me to get behind it. You are not alone, brother.
-
Great response there, Pally. You are absolutely making my day here.
-
Nipple Time!!!
-
Apr 21, 2010 8:34:44 PM CDT
Avatar is an ok film at best. Don´t waste money on the blu-ray.
by thedannerdaliel
1. A special edition likely including 20-40 minutes of additional footage is already being leaked to media for release later THIS YEAR!
2. No special features. If you are a fan, of all the discs in your collection this is the one you really want the extra stuff. It really should be amazing!
3. No 3D presentation. New technology in TVs is out this year and should enhance the home 3D experience. I don't usually care about 3D at home but things are changing. Be ready!
4. There is also news that the movie itself will be re-released shortly with the 20-40 minutes of additional content I mentioned above. Why buy the Blu if you can see it with additional content and in the best possible 3D at theaters--- then buy the special edition just a few months later?
...(tharr be more) Peer into the depths
I have to echo the comments of a previous reviewer. The studios are becoming so brazen. They released this edition and tried to explain the poor accoutrements by saying "they wanted to save all the space on the disc for the best possible presentation". Are you kidding me? Bust out the extra discs already! Offering this bare bones BR right before re-releasing the movie with additional footage was also a classless act that spits in consumer's faces. Just rent the movie or see the enhanced version in theaters. It will tide you over until the Special Edition comes out.
Lastly, there are plenty of people adding comments that you shouldn't wait for 3D because the home experience with 3D is lack luster or most people don't have the new 3D TVs. That's partly true, however...
IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT 3D! The lack of additional storyline, missing special features and blatent disregard for consumers (in an economic downturn) are what make this a bad deal. There is new home theater technology out this year that should enhance the home 3D experience. Your home theater will catch up. People who are excited about this movie should be standing together against a poor release offering, especially when there are terrific alternatives to hold us over.
Wait a few months and get a much superior release for similar money. -
So says Dudewithsecrets...
-
...that I didn't pay for the Blu-Ray I watched. Wasn't even mine, actually. I would definitely wait for the future super cool bells and whistles version before purchasing as well. I just wanted to mention that it does look good.
-
I don't claim that the photo is absolute proof. I would say that alternative hypotheses are (a) extremely unlikely - you have to invoke an enormous coincidence and (b) the equivalent of the "it could be ANY statue" interpretation of the end of Planet of the Apes, i.e. a pretty perverse view of the authorial intentions.
Your suggestion that T2 doesn't HAVE to be read as a story in which the future is changed is valid. I would point out, however, that it seems that way a lot more now, with two sequels and a series that start with the premise that Skynet was not wiped out at the end of T2. I would have said that at the time T2 was released, pretty much everyone thought of it as a story in which Sarah, John and the T-800 manage to prevent Judgment Day.
It is fairly clear that Cameron wrote the script as a story in which the future is changed. His final screenplay features a coda where John is a senator, Sarah an old woman, Skynet never existed etc. So it was written as a story in which Sarah and co try to change the future, and succeed. (And that scene was of course shot and deleted, and can be seen on YouTube.)
Of course, it is fair to say that the final movie delivered to the public had excised that scene, so the official text is non-committal. Having said that, Cameron made no other changes that rippled backwards from that decision - the theatrical release of the movie still has the theme of changing the future running through the marrow of its bones, from the middle of the film onwards. (And Sarah's final monologue still suggests a fresh "new" future that is coming.)
Cameron certainly wrote a movie about change. He delivered one that retained some latitude about that possibility, it's true. -
"That may be true of this world using the science that we understand at THIS moment"
It's nothing to do with science. It's just about the logic of the narrative. I could write a story set in a fictional world where people can fly into space unaided, but that doesn't excuse me from the need to be consistent and drive the story using a coherent internal logic.
"Well, he might not know tech stuff in the world that you and maybe I inhabit but he might well know what he is talking about in the world that Cameron created"
Reese himself says that he doesn't know tech stuff. I'm not contradicting him. I'm agreeing with him. He's just speculating. That's fair enough. Time travel is an entirely new concept to him...he's doing the best he can by trying to theorize on the fly about what might be happening to him. He's just a soldier.
"It's Cameron's narrative not yours and it can obey any rules that he sets up."
I agree that it ought to obey the rules he had set up. Unfortunately, he didn't. He broke them.
And if what you meant here was, "Cameron can break his rules if he wants to", well, of course he CAN, but creators of great stories don't do that imo. -
Imagine that in the final reel of T2, as the T-1000 is chasing our heroes along the highway, their truck simply lifts off and flies into the air to escape it. Why? Because Cameron wanted it to. It serves a purpose in the plot. It's his narrative, not ours...it can obey any rules that he sets up.
Would you have accepted that manoeuvre as a legitimate one, given Cameron's absolute power over his narrative universe? -
I thought this stuff was all common knowledge, but I guess not...
When I read the novelisatations of both Terminator films as a kid, it clearly states that the T-800 and the T-1000 were sent at pretty much the same time - immediately noticing no appreciable distinction in time lines (ie John Connor is still alive!) after sending the T-800, the T-1000 was sent. And Skynet did it out of sheer desperation. There is no second time machine. Skynet was dead at this point which is how the Human Resistance was able to wrest control of the time machine! This is stuff directly from Cameron's original scripts! The T2 screenplay even has a whole section at the beginning with John Connor sending Kyle Reese to 1984!
Now to the Loop... Did noone see the original ending for T2 with John Connor as a senator and Sarah playing with her grandchildren? All in a pristine Washington? No nukes... Nothin'!
Just because these things do not appear on film, does not mean they are not fact.
Your arguments about these films are pointless and annoying. -
It used to exist - it was even on Television once some years ago, but for some reason it no longer seems to appear anywhere.
-
Sounds like the second Matrix movie. Bwah-ha-ha!
-
The entire argument is that T2 is a retcon of The Terminator. Sure, it can ASSERT anything, and you're right, at the start of the screenplay Connor sends the "good" T-800 shortly after he sends Reese.
But you seem (?) to be missing the point of the argument, unless I'm misunderstanding you. The debate is not (directly) "does the future get changed?" or "how long after Reese was sent was the good T-800 sent?". The debate is: does T2 obey the same time travel logic as The Terminator, assuming that in T2 the future is changed?
And the answer, as far as I am concerned, is no. The original film quite clearly portrays a single timeline universe with a loop, barring one possible alternative hypothesis that appeals to absurd coincidence and dismisses the photograph as having no meaning in the narrative. Time travel does not and cannot cause changes to history in such a universe. So if history is changed in T2, it must be set in a different narrative universe. It is not logically compatible with the story to which it purports to be a sequel. -
I have just discovered it can be found on youtube... Though it is now deemed an Alternate ending.
-
I liked the idea that many of Connor's troops were southern hemisphere dudes, as they had fared better in the nuclear storm. Polynesian guys, and South Americans, and Australians, and Maoris.
-
Yeah, it wasn't put into the theatrical release, so it's classified as alternative. To the best of my knowledge, Cameron himself treats it as non-canonical.
-
I get your point entirely.
But these films operate on Quantum Logic, so dismissing tenets such as Quantum tunnelling and effect preceding cause is the only way to come to your conclusion.
As I stated above - there is an original ending in which the loop has in fact ended with history having been changed (even though it is 'future history' ;) ) -
That there was also a secondary (and imo legitimate) debate about whether (ignoring time travel logic stuff) the premise of T2 made any sense, inasmuch as it didn't seem to fit with the "last desperate act of Skynet, armed with extremely patchy information" that seems to be the very heart of the first movie's setup.
-
No, there is nothing in them to suggest that. Indeed, if you subscribe to the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics, there is no purpose in Skynet sending back a terminator at all, as there are already millions of alternative worlds in which it has triumphed over Connor, and in any case it could not save itself in its own world, if that were its aim.
-
Now every Gawddamn genre flick producer for the next two years is going to be blathering away about his film's 3D technological "breakthrough", hoping to get in on AVATAR's sloppy seconds.
Give me a hi-def, digital projector and keep the dorky glasses, assholes... -
I thought that was the main point of Cameron's Terminator... I guess not.
I love these types of discussions, everyone speaks as though they are a time traveller who understands physics in ways that even people like Steven Hawking only theorise about. Including me.
Dude, it's a movie. It's a movie with its original concept rooted in only a basic knowledge of the fundamental science involved.
Hell, I have no idea beyond having read A Brief History of Time, and Hawking mentions these ideas as potentially possibly - not definitely. But in the same book he actually states that the only true alien humans have ever conceived of in our art, that we will actually meet is Dan O'Bannon's...
I take this stuff for what it is... A Collegian Debate topic. -
Oh! That makes sense that only the white race is evil– because there never have been any other race in past or present that are into oppressive Big Business. (sarcasm) Racist much? I have read Zinn - I know how the progressive past is presented to the “intellectual” school children. Very calculated and omitting.
-
Dude. Get off my dick. lol No, I'm not racist in THE SLIGHTEST! And I've read MORE THAN ONE BOOK. Jesus. Wake up man. A majority of the worlds money and power has been in the hands of the white man, and a handful of rich middle easterners, for hundreds of years. Stating such does not make me a racist. It makes me an aware realist. Deal with it. Seriously, take a look at the 100 richest people in the world. Then find a list of who owns the 100 largest corporations. Then shut up. lol The only thing that varies from this is the large Asian conglomerates that are buying up the planet. Why are you in such a bunch about it anyway?
-
the same can EASILY be said of the current situation with the Democrats. It's history repeating itself on the left. I'm sorry if your denial is too deep to accept that.
-
I am fucking back, guys!A V A T A R FTW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-
boring dumb cliche story 1 dimensional characters shit dialogue
-
This will be long, bear with me...It's not a masterpiece by any stretch, but it's not "shit" as so many of you seem to be convinced. While box office is by NO means relative to quality, I think completely overlooking it in this case is silly. FX movies don't make that much money, period. Look at Transformers 2. It made a shit-ton of money in it's first week, and fell off 65% the following week. Avatar kept people coming back because just like Titanic 12 years prior, people responded to it emotionally. And this is people from all over the world, all walks of life. Oscar nominations and Golden Globe wins could be explained by the Box Office, but then again, if it was truly a terrible film, it would be nominated for Razzies, ahem* Transformers 2. The story argument holds no weight to me, and if that's all a viewer got out of the film, then that's a pretty shallow person. Geeks like you praise movies like Tron, 2001, etc. movies that are regarded highly primarily for visuals. As a visual journey the film is truly spectacular. Those who claim the CGI rivals videogame cutscenes are either really dense or blind - blind with hatred, or just literally blind. The story is told highly through visual scenes, so despite some so-so dialogue, we get moments that transcend speech.
Regarding the storyline at that the core, tons of films come out each year that you people embrace that have retreaded stories, or cliche qualities. In a day and age when everything has been done and nothing surprises, this is to be expected. Even The Dark Knight was a superhero retread of Heat. The iconic performance from Ledger made many people over-praise the film, but I see that as no different then people praising Avatar for visuals. We whine because Avatar had similarities to Dances with Wolves, a 1990 film. Perhaps if the storyline was seen in 20 films a year I could see the complaints...but IMO there's nothing wrong with updating the story for a new generation, with a sci-fi spin. But the details is where Avatar is original...lots of great sci-fi concepts (avatar concept, biological links, etc). A film starring CGI blue cat aliens...despite what people say, there is no film in existence that looks and feels anything like Avatar. Pretty damn impressive if you ask me. And you have to keep in mind the film was highly experimental technology wise, and a story too complex could have really sunk the film.
Lots of 2D characters seems to be a complaint, and I see where it comes from, however, how much character development are you expecting to find in this type of film? There are so many different type of films out there, and while some succeed on a character basis, not all do, and that's OK. But besides that, tons of time was spent developing the main romance...when you think about how little action the movie actually had it's quite surprising. The main character went through an effective character arch, and the female lead was certainly stronger then most female characters who grace the screen (Rachel Dawes in Nolans Batman saga anyone?).
I understand Avatar is a flawed movie, and perhaps overpraised by some. But I also think many of you hate on it due to it's success, and many really general reasons. To overlook all the great stuff going on is a crime. At the end of the day it was a Hollywood blockbuster, one that was aimed at 10 years olds and 40 year olds alike. It was a gorgeous film, structured wonderfully, amazing visuals and action sequences, and an emotional pull. To me, that's a quality film, especially in this day and age when we get the Star Wars prequels, Indy 4, Transformers, etc. -
Doesn't really hold. While there certainly was some green screen, much of the film was shot in a huge open warehouse using a virtual camera, giving the movie a live-action feel at all times. No silly backgrounds like in the prequels. If there's one thing you can't knock Avatar, it was flawless in it's visual presentation.
-
Bring it on. I hope it's not Avatar rehashed, but I'm really at a loss for what the plot could be if it's not involving humans. I'm sure Pandoras oceans will be ace, but I guarantee it's not gonna take place primarily in the oceans as some of you seem to think. Like he said we'll see a lot of land too. If he combines it properly it could be another great time at the cinema.
-
I can understand the pressure from Fox for more Avatar sequels,but I think that Cameron should just produce/executive produce them as I'd really like to see him focus on something new, like Battle Angel for example. If he's gonna be directing two more Avatar films it's gonna be what, another five years before we get anything from Battle Angel? Let Paul Verhoven make Battle Angel instead and stop keeping us all waiting!
-
or Avatar 2: Avatarer
Seriously, though, Cameron can do what he wants with those movies but I hope at least there is an interesting story to tell. That's priority one. There was not much original in "Avatar" except the visual effects. The story seemed like a mish-mash of other movies we've already seen.
Yes, my eyeballs got fucked. But my brain could have stood to at least get its balls tickled a little bit. -
FX movies make a shit ton of cash.
-
No! But since it made big bucks everyone wants to make more off of it. Yuck. I hated it and was bored. Predictable! Shallow plot. Great special effects.
-
This makes me fucking sick.
-
It was o.k. 1/2 way in I really started to zone out. Then the end wasn't too bad, but at that point my interest was seriously waning. I'm actually not against a sequel, though, if Cameron improves upon the story. And the dialogue.
-
...on one of those crappy 8 inch back-of-the-headrest screens they have on 'planes. The picture quality was terrible and the sound through the shitty headphones was absolute wank. Obviously not in 3D; obviously not the way it was meant to be seen. Funny that despite this it managed to keep me entertained for the full length of its running time. Would I watch it again, or buy the DVD? No; probably not - but I'm like that with a lot of good films.
Anyway, I'd just like to say a few things regarding Avatar. Firstly;
To all those uber-nerds who are far to cool to admit to liking anything mainstream, who came on every Avatar TB in the run-up to the film's release predicting it would tank and never make the money back (you know who you are), I would like to offer a belated "Ha Ha Ha! You fucking retarded obnoxious pricks! HOW wrong do you want to be?!" I would be also willing to bet that the same silly bastards who spewed that crap also contributed their own (or their Daddy's) cash to see the film at least once...
Secondly:
To all those above basically screaming, "Avatar is shit!" - No, it isn't. You THINK it is shit - there's a difference.
Now I am fully aware that 'good' is a purely subjective term, and everyone is entitled to a personal opinion. However, as far as the medium of film (and in this case, Avatar) goes, let's define 'good' as follows (bearing in mind that 'popular' is not the same as 'good'):
"Of sufficient quality that it provides some kind of entertainment for the paying customer, generates favourable reviews by established critics and, perhaps most importantly, generates good word-of-mouth business, with overall box-office being a rough indicator."
So, using the above objective definition of 'good', I feel justified in extending a hearty "Fuck you, friendless, bitter twats who still continue to scream about Avatar being shit, long after the fact, like wounded retarded children."
Thanks for reading.
-
good sir. I too wish that the people you mention would stop posting their opinions as fact, and just let it go. If they did nt like it, cool beans, but then stop wasting your time harping on endlessly about something you claim to not like.....barring that, grow up and accept that other people like something you dont.
-
me no speak. Like you Im hoping Avatar 2 is a totally different film in terms of genre. Though I really have no idea how in the hell the oceans of Pandora are going to fit into whatever narrative it will have.....
-
Thank YOU, Sir. And well put yourself!
-
be along shortly to prove our points with more of the same screaming in 5..4..3..2..1....
-
I really don't see your point - are you saying there is such a thing as an "objectively good" movie? All I know is that Avatar came along, like New Kids On The Block, and was very popular with a lot of people for a while, and not very popular with a lot of other people - particulary... me.
-
if the 1st one was dances with smurfs and the next one sounds like waterworld with smurfs will the third be field of dreams with smurfs? I hope so!
-
the postnavi travels around Pandora delivering letters to the neighboring gungans. this would be part 4, a prequel starring Sam Worthington as Jar Jar's Uncle
-
As has been established, T2 is only liked because of nostalgia and marketing. Nearly everyone is able to gloss over how it's really nothing more than a cheesy, lame, softened up, and lamed up version of the vastly superior T1, with a completely retarded absent Father complex shoe-horned in for affluent, angst-ridden suburban teens who don't really have anything to complain about, but do anyway.
AVATAR, on the other hand, is actually really good. Yeah, it's derivative, yeah it's heavy-handed, but it's also visually stunning, exciting, and has a good, if, as noted, heavy handed and childishly simplistic, message. I think the hate towards it is largely a lie as it is the #1 movie of all time. Not that this makes it a good movie, but it certainly makes it a movie that the vast majority of people loved (as, I suspect, most of the 'haters' actually do, but are either a) afraid to admit because they're angry 13 year olds, or b) grudgingly like, but have to pretend they hate, because they're right wing assholes.) -
so everything in America is just peachy keen. riiiiiiiiight. The problem with this country are all the spineless jellyfish that don't complain and bend over and say please rape me Federal Reserve I love being an indentured servant
-
What I am saying is that 'good' is predominantly a subjective term. If we wish to use it objectively, then we need to define terms by which to use it, which are as objective as we can make them.
Some things can be defined as 'good' objectively - an apple for instance. We can say an apple is 'good' objectively because it fulfills a basic set of criteria or is fit for purpose, ie; it is fit for consumption - not rotten. Whether it TASTES good is purely subjective.
Now films (or most arts) are subjective, and everyone is entitled to an opinion, but that gives nobody the right to scream "The film IS shit!". If we give the word 'good' a set of objective criteria (as I tried to do), then Avatar ticks all the boxes - it was fit for purpose.
"and not very popular with a lot of other people - particulary... me." And how many - rough numbers will do - people are you?! LOL!
And who are these other people it was not popular with? Do they number more than the amount people who enjoyed Avatar enough to make it the second-highest grossing film of all time, do you think? -
try counting the people that did NOT pay to see Avatar because it looked stupid, add those with those like me who paid to see the spectacle knowing ahead of time it was going to suck, and get real, the vast majority, pfffffffffffffffffffffff. It wasn't even that critically acclaimed.
-
Do you have magical powers of clairvoyance? Or are you a rageaholic 13 year old / morbidly obese middle aged virgin?
-
Soooo, you're saying your an idiot and a lemming. I dunno, call me crazy, but if something looks stupid (like, say, Kick Ass), I don't pay money to see it (haven't seen it, have no plans to).So, Pussy Juice, you basically just outed yourself as a slave to marketplace. YOU INDENTURED YOURSELF! Hahahaha! Jackass.
-
Writing is a technical art. Technically the dialogue in Avatar is very bad. If the dialogue is bad that is one criteria of judging weather a film is bad. If my dog shit on a piece of paper and I called it a beautiful painting that's not a subjective opinion. It is an incorrect opinion because art can be technically criticized on a large number of levels which form the basis of concluding if its good or bad. If you say you don't like Aliens because its a stupid sci fi movie, thats your subjective opinion. But when I say Avatar sucked because the blue escape from fergully thubdersmurfs were stupid, Sam Worthington has the charisma of a paper bag, the story and dialogue sucked, it was long and tedious, it fails on the majority of qualities that make a good film, those are all undeniable facts proving my theory that Avatar sucked, period.
-
Apr 22, 2010 5:36:18 AM CDT
oh goody I picked a fight with an internet tough guy
by winona_ryders_pussy_juice
this guy will go on for hours to compensate for his 4 inch penis if I argue with him. Pass.
-
As all opinions are. But I agree that it was simplistic and heavy handed. So was Star Wars. Avatar being the closest approximation to that, since that. And before you vomit with rage all over your fat fingers and keyboard, no, I don't think that Avatar is nearly as "important" as Star Wars.
-
Says the guy who started it. But, hilarious way to back out. Btw, you seem obsessed with your tiny penis. Is it a latent gay thing?
-
Apr 22, 2010 5:40:08 AM CDT
Oh, No, Wait, This Is Your Compensation For All The Beatings?
by laserpants
In the schoolyard. You were the weird fat kid, weren't you? I'm sorry about your childhood!
-
I picked a fight does mean that I started it. So pointing that out to me is kind of retarded. See, laserpants is an idiot thats why i dont want to get into a cat fiht with him, thats what girls do, hes prolly wearing a red thong and halter top right now
-
fuck thats genius. maybe i should change my mind and talk more shit, this is so interesting, what will he come up with next, that his dad can beat up my dad?
-
"Technically the dialogue in Avatar is very bad."
Is it? You mean you couldn't understand it? They weren't speaking English? The words were spoken in incorrect order, or they used a heavy dialect nobody is familiar with?
Or do you just mean you didn't LIKE the dialogue? -
It just dawned on me that you actually ARE that weird, sad, borderline illiterate fat kid / morbidly obese middle aged virgin with too much time on his hands (and by time I mean his own crusted semen)! I'm so sorry, man, I thought I was arguing with a mentally stable human being. My bad. Enjoy hating everything! Btw, have you ever tasted pussy juice? Probably not, right? Don't worry, when you save up enough allowance, you can pay a hooker to give you a taste of her diseased quim.
-
"try counting the people that did NOT pay to see Avatar because it looked stupid, add those with those like me who paid to see the spectacle knowing ahead of time it was going to suck, and get real, the vast majority, pfffffffffffffffffffffff. It wasn't even that critically acclaimed."
Wow. OK, here we go:
1. Think of your favourite film, or a film you consider 'good'. Now count the amount of people who DIDN'T see it against those who did. Right. Are we counting people like African Tribesmen without access to cinemas? How about people who don't really like that specific genre? What about soldiers stationed in areas where they can't access a cinema?
Or shall we just count the number of people who watched Avatar and compare it to the amount of people who have watched other films, by using box-office as an indicator? Would that be easier?
Once again, popularity is no indicator of subjective quality, but combined with a few other variables as I did, we can at least show that Avatar got a few things right.
2. You paid to see a film you were absolutely convinced would suck as far as you were concerned. Either you are dedicated and wished to see the film so you could comment with authority on why you disliked it, or you're a stupid twat. I know which one I'm going with.
3. Avatar at Rotten Tomatoes = 82%. Hmmmm. Not exactly universally loathed is it?
Once again, critical opinion on its own is just that - opinion. however, factor in the other variables I mentioned, and the idea of Avatar being 'good' in the objective terms I described is fairly valid.
You really have hopped on the fail express this morning, eh? -
...since he made The Abyss- did that start his love affair with the sea/depths of the oceans? Saw The Abyss on Film 4 last night for the first time in ages- when the actions kicks off in the second half it is entertaining; the first act is difficult and hard to follow; again the dialogue is pretty awful and cheesy. JC- visuals and action top man- dialogue- not so much. I think JC is better at putting together his scripments- passing over to expert writers and storytellers- then just directing the films.
-
you really needed to post a wall of text defending the incorrect statement that Avatar was LOVED by the MAJORITY of people. Lol. are you 2 fuckwits on ritalin or what. ease off the meds you fuckin psychos are BORING the fuck out of me and ruining this talkback. go scratch your dogs balls that would be more productive than demonstrating to folks on the internet that you're a crack baby that was dropped on his head by his crack head wellfare mom.
-
The last resort of the intellectually bankrupt.
You got nothing else have you? -
Quite ironic ….
that a talkbacker with a somewhat distasteful name like WINONA_RYDERS_PUSSY_JUICE talks the most sense. I wanted to comment but there’s really nothing I can add.
-
He talks SENSE?!
Did you actually READ this near-incoherent babble:
"Technically the dialogue in Avatar is very bad. If the dialogue is bad that is one criteria of judging weather a film is bad. If my dog shit on a piece of paper and I called it a beautiful painting that's not a subjective opinion. It is an incorrect opinion because art can be technically criticized on a large number of levels which form the basis of concluding if its good or bad. If you say you don't like Aliens because its a stupid sci fi movie, thats your subjective opinion. But when I say Avatar sucked because the blue escape from fergully thubdersmurfs were stupid, Sam Worthington has the charisma of a paper bag, the story and dialogue sucked, it was long and tedious, it fails on the majority of qualities that make a good film, those are all undeniable facts proving my theory that Avatar sucked, period."
He doesn't even know the difference between subjectivity and objectivity!
Just in case you missed this little gem, I will quote once again:
"...But when I say Avatar sucked because the blue escape from fergully thubdersmurfs were stupid, Sam Worthington has the charisma of a paper bag, the story and dialogue sucked, it was long and tedious, it fails on the majority of qualities that make a good film, those are all undeniable facts proving my theory that Avatar sucked, period."
His subjective opinion is now undeniable FACT! According to him EVERYONE IN THE WORLD who saw Avatar found it long and tedious and hated the story - FACT.
And he's talking SENSE? Really?!
-
First of all, let me point out that it started the whole ___2 crap of shortening the title to indecipherable nonsense. That alone should piss you off.But let's apply the principles of T2 to Star Wars and see if you'd like that.After Return of the Jedi, Darth Vader meets to Luke Skywalker's son. He says that right before he was killed, he was cloned by the Emperor. As the Empire fell, the cloning facility was discovered by the rebels and he was raised by Obi-Wan's ghost. But there is a new menace in the universe, so Vader has come to (we'll call him Jake) Skywalker to aid in its defeat. Jake is 13 years old, has hair in his eyes and likes to listen Guns N Roses.Together they go on adventure in which Vader promises not to kill anyone and asks Jake why he cries. Jake is teaching him to talk cool like "Chill out dickwad" and "Hasta la vista baby". This is hilaroious because Vader used to be so scary. It's fun to make him kinda dumb and harlmess, YEAH!Now imagine sitting there watching this in the theater and wondering how a fucking monstrosity like this could have been created, yet all the kids in the theater say it's the best fucking movie they've ever seen!Welcome to my world.
-
The argument of objectivity of art does hold. Indeed, there’s no accounting for taste and different people like different things. HOWEVER that does not mean that there’s not a certain standard for quality. He’s right: you can say that Roseanne is more attractive than Megan Fox but based on a number of objective parameters such as figure, symmetry of face, etc that just wouldn’t be true. The same thing goes for paintings, music, food and basically everything.
The dialogue, story and characters are clichéd, derivative and predictable. Therefore Avatar can never be deemed a good movie, beautiful as it may look. You can still enjoy it but objectively it is not a good movie.
Also he didn’t say everybody FOUND it long and tedious; he said it WAS long and tedious. Lots of people enjoyed TF2 and Twilight as well………
-
I'm done with him.
-
Avatar dissers need to go and kill themselves. It's Earth Day, so do something for the environment.
-
"HOWEVER that does not mean that there’s not a certain standard for quality."
If this is the case, and you're arguing that art can be viewed predominently from an objective POV, then by this logic, Avatar = second-highest grossing film EVER; therefore it follows that in order to achieve this, it must have met some kind of level of quality, or word-of-mouth and bad press would have destroyed it.
"He’s right: you can say that Roseanne is more attractive than Megan Fox but based on a number of objective parameters such as figure, symmetry of face, etc that just wouldn’t be true."
Are you seriously suggesting that you can apply objectivity to what a person finds physically attractive? I'm sure there are thousands of 'Chubby Chasers' who would strongly disagree with your example.
"The dialogue, story and characters are clichéd, derivative and predictable."
No; you THINK this based on personal experience. To a young child/teenager just beginning to really discover films, who may not be familiar with the themes, cliches and narrative similarities of Avatar to other films/stories, it is as fresh as a daisy, because if they have never come across a cliche before - it isn't a cliche for them.
"Therefore Avatar can never be deemed a good movie, beautiful as it may look."
That does not logically follow.
"Lots of people enjoyed TF2 and Twilight as well……… "
That's great. I hate Twighlight, but I would never start screaming like a retard, "Twighlight is shit!" - if you ASK me, I might say "I THINK Twighlight is shit because...".
-
Apr 22, 2010 10:35:55 AM CDT
"Cameron is at least still trying to do different things while m
by nightarrows
Really? Different like how? Like making Dances with the Last Ferngully Samurai? Or aping the end of his own movie for the lame-ass power-suit Beat It video knife fight end of Avatar? Or using the Velociraptor sound effects for the horses? Or making a 3D film? Or nearly anything else he did in Avatar? Whatever, I'm sure the flock will flock to see the sequel.
-
"HOWEVER that does not mean that there’s not a certain standard for quality."
If this is the case, and you're arguing that art can be viewed predominently from an objective POV, then by this logic, Avatar = second-highest grossing film EVER; therefore it follows that in order to achieve this, it must have met some kind of level of quality, or word-of-mouth and bad press would have destroyed it.
"He’s right: you can say that Roseanne is more attractive than Megan Fox but based on a number of objective parameters such as figure, symmetry of face, etc that just wouldn’t be true."
Are you seriously suggesting that you can apply objectivity to what a person finds physically attractive? I'm sure there are thousands of 'Chubby Chasers' who would strongly disagree with your example.
"The dialogue, story and characters are clichéd, derivative and predictable."
No; you THINK this based on personal experience. To a young child/teenager just beginning to really discover films, who may not be familiar with the themes, cliches and narrative similarities of Avatar to other films/stories, it is as fresh as a daisy, because if they have never come across a cliche before - it isn't a cliche for them.
"Therefore Avatar can never be deemed a good movie, beautiful as it may look."
That does not logically follow.
"Lots of people enjoyed TF2 and Twilight as well……… "
That's great. I hate Twighlight, but I would never start screaming like a retard, "Twighlight is shit!" - if you ASK me, I might say "I THINK Twighlight is shit because...".
WINONA said it is a fact that Avatar is long and tedious, therefore it follows logically that everyone else who saw the film must have thought this. Don't let his VAST stupid bring you down by trying to defend it. You are really going to try and defend someone who states their own personal experience and opinions of a film are cold, hard facts which apply - without discussion - to everyone who sees the film?
-
"Narratively, by the way, the first film HAS to allow the possibility that the future is not set despite the "evidence" of the photo indicating a line of history that cannot be changed; if it doesn't then there is no drive, no excitement, no conflict"
I would agree with you if it were obvious from early on in the film that this were the case. But it isn't. It is only shown to you right at the very end. Only in the final scene is it shown to the audience that:
a. Reese is John's father
b. Sarah has the photo taken that Reese will have in the future (and, incidentally, that at the moment it was taken, the moment where he always wondered what she was thinking, she was, in fact, thinking about him).
So in the final two minutes, when the immediate threat of the movie has been dealt with and the enigma resolved, when we are relaxing, the loop is revealed. This is the perfect place for the revelation to come, and it's beautifully juxtaposed with the "storm coming in" warning. We know that Sarah and John WILL succeed, but we also know that there will be horrendous pain and suffering that will take place on the way. -
The reason Aliens and Terminator are classics is because they had great stories, fully developed characters and iconic creatures by Stan Winston, not because the fx were mind blowing. They had the ingredients that made a film stand the test of time, Avatar doesn't. 10 years from now when the dazzle and spectacle has worn off and these fx are everywhere, people will most likely remember Avatar as the film that upped the game on visuals, but that's it. The people that see that now are dismissed as haters of mainstream films, but the fact remains that the people that dislike it have very good, legitimate reasons. I haven't seen anyone on here say "I hate it because it's too successful", they're all taking it to task on legitimate weaknesses, which are acting, dialogue and story. I was one of the few people that didn't really care about it leading up to it's release, then when I saw the trailer I thought it looked like people in a cartoon but it's James Cameron so it might be cool. Then I saw it, and while the fx were extraordinary, I was bored out of my mind within a half hour. I found myself not caring about the characters at all, the acting and dialogue were lazy and unnatural, the story was extremely bland and almost every character was a cardboard cutout sterotype. Look, I don't think it was a shit movie, but I also don't think it was a great movie, and there's really nothing in the film that makes me want to rewatch it again. The reason for it's success was that it was shiny and glowing and visually revolutionary, and people like that. But in 10 years, no one will care, and possibly wonder why they were so into it in the first place. It won't hold up like Cameron's earlier films did.
-
Avatar is not original as in Star wars original not even Matrix original and yes, the protagonists were devoid of any character development especially compared to the ensemble cast from Aliens.As far as I can recall, there was an independent comic called M.I.C.A. whereas a parapelegic woman is synced to a super powered being. Sound familiar?look it up. :P
-
Te democrats are trying to fix the fuck ups that the loony neo-con artists from the republicans Bushie administration did. And tyhey will not suceed. You know why? Because it will take 50 years to repair the shit that Bush did. Obama can only do baby steps in the right direection, which he is. Your beloved republican psycopathic shits are the fuckers you should be blaming for the shit your country,and by extention the world, is into, not Obama. Deal with it.
-
There's much to like about that movie. And ubnlike most special effects stravaganzas, it actually had an heart to it. But there's flaws in the movie which are just bewildering. But the movie did proved to be immensely popular to the point it became critic-proof.
-
Thanks for the laughs, dude.
-
First of all I'm not a Republican. I hate them as much as you do. Sigh where to begin? I mean, you know that it was mostly the Federal Reserve that allowed the financial con to take place, right? Not the evil "Republicans." George Bush is just a puppet. Who proffitted from the bail out scam? The politicians? No, they only recieve bribes. They are just whores. The Democrats are whores, and the Republicans are whores. Who is their pimp? Why don't you place your hate on the correct villain? It's not the political puppets. George Bush was in Skull and Bones, but so was John Kerry! The left/right false paradigm in America is used to manipulate and control you. Wake up! Have you heard of these documentary movies? Fall of the Republic http://tinyurl.com/23tdgbm The Obama Deception http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw Dude the Wall Street deregulation began during Clinton's presidency.
-
you stated the obvious, but still that which most cannot or will not see.
-
Before you know it, WINONA_RYDERS_PUSSY_JUICE will be saying that 9/11 was an inside job...
-
Specifically the cretin who asked me if I couldn't understand the dialogue because it was technically inept. Lol. I mean, that argument is so dumb I don't know why I'm bothering to respond but here goes. How about the definition of technical? Hmmm? Lol idiot: Etymology: Greek technikos of art, skillful, from technē art, craft, skill; akin to Greek tektōn builder, carpenter, Latin texere to weave, Sanskrit takṣati he fashions. So right off the bat it's derived from a word alluding to "art." Now art is very technical. Lets say I paint a sailboat. If I don't have the technical skills to paint that sailboat it's not going to be pretty. Those skills include : color theory, composition, style, brush stroke execution, and other technical skills. Same goes for writing. There's more to writing than knowing the alphabet. Having the skill to weave a competent plot and story is a technical art. It requires research and knowledge. If you write a story and spell all the words right and all the sentences are understandable, but you have no knowledge of the art of writing, and your characters are shallow and not fleshed out, you don't weave an actual story that draws the viewers attention, instead you write a meandering, unorganized, unstructured string of thoughts that have no resonance with the reader, you have technically failed.
-
infowars.com You don't have to believe it, but you should have an open mind because if you don't you end up a person like Asimovlives who is completely unaware of the true reality of geopolitics.
-
Only that level of fucked-up logic could come from a 'Truther'...
-
Invisible Empire http://tinyurl.com/2btec8k Check it out
-
...the cottage industry of the conspiracy age. Brought to you by Alex Jones: the Glenn Beck of radio.
-
I provided the defininition of technical and to say the only technical aspect of writing is execution of the english language is completely false. I'm sorry you're too simple minded to understand.
-
Alex Jones supports Ron Paul. So no, he is not the Glen Beck of the internet.
-
...I said he is the Glenn Beck of RADIO.
-
I intentionally used the example of physical attractiveness because I know that IS an objectively measurable parameter. I can refer you to the excellent John Cleese documentary about beauty and the human face. : http://tiny.cc/1s0k9. Furthermore, quality of art is not an exact science but is a science nonetheless. Are you saying that all design courses, art appreciation classes, wine tastings, etc are bullshit because it is something you can argue about?
"The dialogue, story and characters are clichéd, derivative and predictable." YES. This may not seem so to kids but that is exactly because they lack basic knowledge about movies. In fact it is kind of insult to Avatar because you almost seem to admit that only kids can enjoy Avatar on an intellectual level. Avatar, Twilight and TF2 are all mediocre products that appealed to the audience in some way (mostly visual). BTW Avatar is obviously a better movie than those 2! Who knows why some guys like fat chicks? In the time of Rubens it was because being fat was as sign of wealth. Nowadays it just a sign of ???? Fact is very fat = not pretty.
-
This guy is a better writer than me (which is mostly talent, not technical skill I will admit, but you can still judge an artist on his technical execution) so I'll cut and paste, plus he's done a research paper on the topic. Supporting Human Creative Story Authoring with a
Synthetic Audience. ABSTRACT
Human creativity plays an important role in the production
of many of the media products that permeate our society.
However, non-expert creators are often limited by a lack of
technical ability, as opposed to creative ability. This is
especially true for story authoring. We present an approach
to supporting creativity using synthetic audience – an
intelligent agent that acts as (a) a surrogate story recipient
and (b) critic capable of providing constructive feedback.
We describe initial efforts based on computational
modeling of cognitive processes and creativity.
INTRODUCTION
Human creativity plays an important role in the production
of many of the media products that permeate our society,
such as novels, movies, and art. However, there are often
distinct differences between experts and non-experts. We
postulate that these differences are not necessarily due to
creative ability, but due to expertise of technical skills. For
example, writing a story requires character development,
causal relationships, and an appropriate exposition and
resolution of the plot [4].
The prevalence on the Internet of storytelling rings, fanfiction,
and machinima suggests that there is a high degree
of interest among non-experts in creating and sharing storybased
content. Anecdotally, story authoring is a
complicated skill. That a community will value a story is
not a foregone conclusion of its creation. Here we assume
our target user is interested in authoring stories that are
structured for mainstream consumption [4]. Therefore, the
development of tools that support authors in creating
purposeful content plays an important role in enabling the
creativity of non-experts, especially when creation is
prohibitively costly, difficult, or time-consuming.
-
Glen Beck is a neocon talking head working for a globalist news agency. The owners of Fox are the same group of scoundrels he pretends to oppose. Why don't they fire him? The Neocons are using Beck to try and coral the Tea Party movement and assimilate them into the Republican/neocon party. He's not genuine. Alex Jones is independant, he serves no one but himself and his love for America.
-
and Alex Jones' radio show streams from his internet sight Infowars which is the staging ground for many of his operations. Just sayin.
-
Apr 22, 2010 3:45:29 PM CDT
Weaver testifies to Senate about "Ocean Acidification".
by royston lodge
Coincidence?
http://tinyurl.com/26ccq42 -
http://tinyurl.com/yhk5wpp
-
But I happen to think they are both disinformation "agents". One suffers from paranoid delusion and believes in radical conspiracy theories based upon applicability as opposed to vetted investigation and hard facts. The other is simply insane.Quote: "Why don't they fire him?"That's simple. Ratings = $$$
-
http://tinyurl.com/2btec8k
How much more investigation and hard facts is it going to take? There's more than enough to justify almost every widespread conspiracy theory. As for 9/11, like I said, you don't have to believe it, but there's MORE than enough evidence to make you think twice about the official US government explanation of events. -
Apr 22, 2010 4:31:54 PM CDT
The Gulf of Tonkin was a staged government false flag
by winona_ryders_pussy_juice
operation to get the US into the Vietnam War. FACT
-
"John Doe #2" Also there were widespread media reports of bombs placed inside the building. McVeighs truck did not cause all that damae. This is shown in a documentary Rules of Engagement that won an Academy Award. FACT
-
Al Queda was created by the US government to fight Russia inside Afghanistan. 15 of the 19 9/11 highjackers got their Visas from Jehda. A whistleblower from that visa department claims he was ordered to give terrorists visas to go to the United States for training to fight the Russians. FACT http://info-wars.org/2010/02/10/cia-ordered-visas-for-15-of-the-19-911-hijackers-in-jeddah/
-
Apr 22, 2010 4:41:45 PM CDT
A congressional investigation concluded that
by winona_ryders_pussy_juice
the JFK assassination was probably a conspiracy. FACT. http://tinyurl.com/yk3a578
-
how much evidence does it take to break your denial? There will never be enough. www.infowars.com
-
I got my facts mixed up, Rules of Engagement was about WACO :P And it was only nominated. But watch it, wow that's shocking the government is evil, face the facts
-
Never saw it.
-
Throughout your list of things that characters might have done, I think (?) that you're always assuming that they have free will. But everything they do has already happened at the level of the static 4D structure. Subjectively, they feel like they're making choices. And of course they may not even realize that they are in a deterministic universe that runs on rails. But even if they did, it would make no difference. If they try to escape their destiny, the actions they take turn out to be the ones they always took and which proved to be part of the single tapestry that always existed.
I mean, take Skynet. Skynet desperately tries to reverse its defeat by trying to kill its enemy using time travel. But its actions end up CREATING its enemy - exactly the opposite of what it had wanted.
These themes, these delicious ironies, are very much the beating heart of The Terminator, even if it has the veneer of an action chase movie.
Another nice angle to the proceedings: the terminator had no idea that it could have killed John Connor at any moment prior to his conception by ignoring Sarah and focusing on Reese. But, again, that would never have happened, because it was always part of the single timeline that Reese would get Sarah pregnant in 1984 and John would be born nine months later.
If you were reading a history about Julius Caesar, would you think it might be possible that Caesar could avoid being assassinated? If not, why not? After all, at any point in his life, he or others around him might have taken different actions. So why not hope that he will survive as you read the book?
The obvious answer is that you know that "Caesar DID get assassinated". You have to apply the same logic in The Terminator. Just because it seems that the cyborg COULD have killed Sarah, or that she COULD have committed suicide, we know that she DIDN'T. Any "what if?"s are just counterfactuals exactly like those with Caesar. The contemplation of counterfactuals is not evidence that free will exists or that you are not in a deterministic narrative universe. -
Is that the same thing as saying that the story is not about destiny?
i.e. would you claim that the story of The Terminator is NOT one about destiny?
If so, try to find the novelization of the movie, based on Cameron and Wisher's original screenplay. And read the very last paragraph. -
Why do you think Cameron included the two scenes with the photograph of Sarah?
Why did he put that in?
Wouldn't the movie have worked perfectly well as an action flick without it?
What is it there for? What purpose does it serve in his movie? -
Base it on an original story?
Readers Talkback
User Login
Top Talkbacks
- Whitney Houston 1963 - 2012 -- 171 total posts 169 posts
- AVENGERS enemy revealed as pink boardgame pieces... You might suffer some form of elation... SPOILERS!!! -- 157 total posts 111 posts
- There's a STAR TREK video game that is going to lead into JJ's STAR TREK 2 apparently... -- 138 total posts 75 posts
- Here's The Red Band Trailer For Drafthouse Films' THE FP! -- 67 total posts 67 posts
- To Commemorate The 3D Release Of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, George Lucas Wants You To Know...Greedo Shoots First!! -- 479 total posts 62 posts
- New JUDGE DREDD post production footage pops up -- 59 total posts 59 posts
- Does ‘SNL’ Rhyme With ‘Deschanel’?? Learn Which SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE Vet Hosts After Sexy Zooey!! -- 62 total posts 59 posts
- HANNA's Saoirse Ronan to boss around seven little people -- 48 total posts 45 posts
- Friday Brings SWEEPS DAY NINE!! Gab Here About Tonight’s FRINGE!! Plus Einstein on TIM, Wiig On PORTLANDIA, MAHER, CLONE, GIFTED, GRIMM, SPARTACUS, SUPERNATURAL, GOLD RUSH And More!! -- 116 total posts 32 posts
- SPACE 2099!! -- 181 total posts 30 posts