VLOG 12/20/09: Avatar review

I swear to God I had not seen Spoony's review when I filmed this. Here's my thoughts on James Cameron's Avatar.



And furthermore...The more I think about this movie, the more I hate it. They couldn't settle for beating us over the head with environmental propaganda, but they even throw in a rant against the War on Terror. They might as well have had the words "all white people are evil" omnipresent of the screen.

By the way, is the actual name of the mineral they're mining for unobtainium? Are you fucking kidding me? I thought at first that they were joking and would mention the real name later, but NO!! As if Pandora wasn't a lousy enough name for the planet itself. And how the fucking hell were the Na'vi communicating in the battlefield? They just squeezed their throats a little, and it worked exactly like a walkie-talkie! Explanations, movie!! We need to know these things!! Honestly, when Sigourney Weaver hit us us with the bullshit about how everything on the planet is connected, the movie's mail order "corporate asshole" took the words right out of my mouth: "What have you people been smoking!?"

And the real tragedy of it is that it truly is massive waste of truly groundbreaking technology. I think is speaks volume that the best actor in the movie is Zoe Saldana, whose character is entirely animated. I've honestly never seen animated characters so realistic and expressive, and it breaks my heart that there were no three dimensional, well developed characters behind said faces.

EDIT: Also, the longer I think, the more I realize that this technology really isn't that groundbreaking. Sure it was more realistic looking, but not that much. CGI technology has been steadily improving over the years, and this is really nothing more than another small micro-step, not a game-changing leap forward. It's still not seamless, and it still can't fully replace real-life actors, concrete matter, and practical effects. Pixar mastered the art of making animated characters believable & expressive over ten years ago, without the aid of a real actors face as a model. So really, even the special effects don't stand out that much.