Thread: Avatar movie

I saw it.

The first few minutes were right out of Joe Haldeman's "Forever War" (1973) as were most of the subsequent military scenes with powered armor for example. The heart of the story paralleled Cliff Simak's chapter IV of "City" (1952) entitled "Desertion."

When the main character first gets in with the tribe there was a lot of Disney, a whole lot, especially in the voices. But as it continued it looked a lot like he became Crazy Horse, leading the indigenes to victory over the cavalry at Little Big Horn (Greasy Grass), except here there were no reinforcements/replacements so the evil wasichu had to retreat. (Remember that fight was about gold mining in the Black Hills. Think of the main character here as Little Big Man, living in both cultures.)

Because the film paid attention to written SF as of 1975 it continues the tradition of "Star Wars" wherein the film genre is about 25 years behind the written. Space Opera had gone out with the Golden Age as of 1977 but Star Wars did it well, epitomized by the bar scene. It looks like Spielberg had a more consistent vision than Cameron, because I can think of no one scene that epitomizes "Avatar." The movie makes a couple of essential points rather quickly, almost in passing, so that if you happened to go out for a smoke or to use the head you could lose the thread, like what that white tree has to do with anything.

The happy ending was back to Disney. Cameron's fingerprints were all over Titanic. Here I think he was distracted or diluted or maybe even overruled by a committee somewhere along the line. It gets mushy.

Oh, there was one gaff I think. The colonel says he got his scars as a "shave-tail 2nd Lt" on his first day on Pandora. Now he is a bird-colonel so his whole career was spent at this outpost, evidently. But in the opening they say "6 years out to here, 6 years here, 6 years back to home" implying that a tour on Pandora is only 6 years. Inconsistent?

Originally Posted by Viva La Migra

Anyone seen James Cameron's "Avatar" yet? I took my kids to see it in 3D the other day. The CGI was amazing, but the story could have been better. When will Hollywood get off their anti-capitalism, environmentalist wacko high horses?

I'm afraid it will always be that way.."District 9" was heavy with socialistic agendas too...As was "Watchmen", "Star Trek"...etc