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Ok you're now on my ignore list. All of you.

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:lol:

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Well, I just got back from seeing it in 3D and I'm ready to side with Bube.

I'd say it's about average at best. I went because of the visuals and I was still disappointed by it. Many friends had said how much they got sucked into the world of Pandora, but I can't say it worked for me.

Okay, first the story/screenwriting, etc. You guys have pretty much covered it, but I have to reiterate that it was taken out of the screenwriting 101 text book. Does that make it bad? Not necessarily, but cheesy lines and a predictable story arc and completely one dimensional characters are boring and uninteresting. Again, it did the job of getting you to more action scenes and fireflies flying into your eyeballs, but I never really cared about why it was happening and that's a pretty big failure.

One more thing about story. My film teacher used to say, "Every movie you'll ever see is the same. Boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, and then it's all about how you tell the story." Well, I thought Avatar's was too simple. Also the "pre-war" speech was straight outta Braveheart

Now to the visuals. This is easily the most impressive CGI I've ever seen. There are probably a lot of technical aspects I don't understand, and many things looked very nice. In the end, I hated the general color scheme. Everything had that weird neon glow stick look, I just kind of got sick of it. The creatures were okay, but everything was slimy, there wasn't that much variety in the world of Pandora. The action scenes were great and half-way through I just kind of found myself waiting for them and nothing else, but you can't have just a movie with action scenes.

Anyway, I expected to be blown away, and I wasn't.

People keep saying that this movie will change the industry forever, but...really? Is that it? I'd still rather see Miyazaki's beautiful 2D drawings and the world/story he creates than Cameron's any day. Or Pixar for that matter. They create brilliant and beautiful worlds around a great story rather than the visuals like Cameron seems to do.

Anyway, so I'm with you, Bube! :)

PS: I didn't really see the Mid-East connection until these blatant lines.

General Whatever: WE FIGHT TERROR WITH TERROR

Doctor Whatever: They're starting some "Shock and Awe" campaign

That last one especially is a pretty direct reference to the beginning of the Iraq war.

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Well, at least we're up to 3 people now, if we include BaB, who hasn't done much to support us yet :p

Oh, and let me fuel the fire - I also hated Titanic :D

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You hated Titanic, or you think it's overrated? Because I also think it's overrated, but if I see it once every 5 years, I'll still enjoy it.

I'll probably watch Avatar on Saturday or Sunday. I discovered our cinema here shows it in 3D after all. :) My brother won't come, he thinks he won't like it.

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I hated it, and therefore think it's overrated :)

I don't know, I've always been fascinated by the Titanic, and it's tragic story, but when I saw that it had been turned into a love story, it was another tragedy for me :)

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I don't know what you expect

Our side, won't magically be convinced that the movie wasn't more than a tech demo for 3D effects.

And their side won't see it as bland and unoriginal. Prolonging the debate does nothing.

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Don't worry, I'll settle the dispute in a few days. ;)

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I was joking of course :) I myself didn't even want to get into a debate, but when asked direct questions, I had to answer them :)

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I am seeing this tonight and will offer my opinion.

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I liked this movie quite a bit, and the 3D was a nice touch, but I don't think it made the movie - the CGI did. Halfway through the movie I forgot it was CGI, I was totally immersed in the world of Avatar, and you know that is when CGI has truly reached its potential.

Avatar's greatest strength was the total immersion into Pandora, but it also created its greatest weakness - the lame, blatant, and unneeded direct allusions to the Iraq War. "Terror with terror." "Shock and awe." Those lines were pathetic - and totally removed me from the immersion of the movie - it brought me away from Pandora and back to Earth.

The meaning of the movie could have been made much more profoundly, in my view, if it were made more subtly.

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In the writers' defense - what would you rather they said? I didn't see it as anything to do with the Iraq war. Fighting terror with terror is a good strategy. And it's the new "Fight fire with fire." And since when does the phrase "Shock and Awe" directly refer to Iraq?

Like I said, if anything - it's more of an allusion to Native Americans than the Iraq War.

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"Shock and awe" is an American military term. From Wikipedia: "The doctrine was written by Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade in 1996 and is a product of the National Defense University of the United States." This might be an American thing, but the term is very heavily associated with the Iraq War.

"The battle plan is based on a concept developed at the National Defense University. It's called "Shock and Awe" and it focuses on the psychological destruction of the enemy's will to fight rather than the physical destruction of his military forces."

It's interesting you point out the Native American angle, though, as I saw the movie with one, and he also thought it alluded more to Native Americans than the Iraq War, but I'm not so sure.

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Personally I got more of an anti unregulated capitalism message.

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Got this from the Blackwater allusion?