Avatar Passes the $1 Billion Mark

ekuest said:
well he did write it some 16 years ago, putting it before last samurai and even pocahontas. what was titanic? another fucking love story? talk about overdone! sheesh. :D anyway, i cant wait to see it, you bunch of negative nancys cant get me down. got my imax tickets for tomorrow night!
Click to expand...

Not in my Top10 movies ever but definitely should fit nicely in my Top20(I'm an artfuck.), but yeah everyone ignores this point. Cameron wrote this in 1994-96 it predates all the repetitive crap that's come out and considering the length and content of the film it was extremely uncompromising and not all kid friendly.
 
I wonder what the inflation adjusted gross would be. At $10-20/ticket Barney would be the highest grossing movie of all time.
 
Saw the movie couple days ago. I thought the 3d was a nice touch. That was one of the things that made me see it at the theater, actually. Can't get it anywhere else and it's fun once in a while, while I wait for holographic projectors :p

The story and the main character in particular were pretty dull. Not that I thought the story would be very important after they mentioned 'unobtanium' in the first few minutes. As for the 'message', couldn't take it seriously. The conflict was fabricated and the people in charge weren't even making decisions that made any kind of bussiness sense. On the other side, the 'natives' weren't simply connected to the environment, they were plugged in. Conservationism takes a whole different aspect when you interact on that level. Not exactly relatable.
 
SilverSliver said:
Avatar in 3D was just sick. Absolutely the most visually entertaining movie I have ever seen. The story was vanilla and boring.
Click to expand...

fyp

First 3d movie I've seen and I have to say it was a bit hard on my eyes, mostly because the glasses weren't perfectly clean. Absolutely gorgeous.
 
Derangel said:
And why would I want to do that? I'm still paying extra money for a movie I can't fully enjoy. ALL forms of 3D that use glasses give me a headache. Whether its the stereoscopic crap or the so-called digital 3D that movies use now days. So why should I pay $12 (plus the cost of soda and popcorn) to watch a movie I won't be able to enjoy when for under $4 I can rent the Blu-Ray when it comes out or buy it for $20.
Click to expand...

ya i agree, first time watching a 3D movie and hopefully the last. It felt like a gimmick, hurt my eyes, and gave me a headache to where I just couldnt enjoy the movie.
 
Avatar was probably one of the best movie experiences I have had in the last 10 years.

Considering it has already reached the $1B mark, its safe to say its getting that for a reason.

My friends and I cant wait for a sequel!
 
I think the use of the term unobtainium is just slang for "mineral that is almost impossible to get and worth boatloads of money" as opposed to the actual scientific name of whatever fictional material they were looking for. In fact, if you look it up that's pretty much how the name is defined: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobtanium Cameron just took the word and applied it appropriately so he didn't have to go into exposition about the properties of the stuff and instead just use it as a plot device: We want it, they're in the way, something has got to give. It's the sci-fi equivalent of gold, ivory, jade, diamonds, uranium, etc - whatever is the money mineral of the day that, in the minds of some, is worth uprooting an entire culture over. It's not like that hasn't happened before, so exactly what the mineral does isn't really important to the story, only the fact that it's there.
 
Too bad this great CGI is wasted on such a preposterously cliched, liberal guilt trip of a story. "Oh, we humans should feel guilty because we want to wipe out the poor, peaceful space Indians." Bleech.
 
I thought this movie was amazing, i agree the visuals are the best part.

However the parts that bothered me about the story was the family friendliness of it all. If the movie content was slightly critiqued into an "R" film, it would have been a 10/10 in my book. Many of the deaths were too "hushed away".

Also is it just me or are the female aliens basically topless in this movie? If they are i couldn't really tell, largely to not having my glasses at the time of watching, and the way its filmed to purposely avoid attention to that area.

It would have made Cameron 75% less money probably is the only thing.
 
PoopsMacClaude said:
but the story, acting, and dialogue, pretty much what really makes a movie - was completely designed for dumbfucks. So, with that being said, James Cameron is a brilliant businessman, because there are literally billions of dumbfucks around that will love lap this shit up.
Click to expand...
You need to replace "Dumbfucks" with "liberals". Serously, Hollywood just can't seem to make a movie that doesn't have some simpleminded left wing message that hits you over the head like an anvil. Is a little balance too much to ask? I mean, gray characters are so much more interesting than black and white.

So funny to see Hollywood leftists like Cameron and Michael Moore denounce the civilization that made them rich.

Anti-Capitalist Movie Avatar Partners With McDonalds for Corporate Marketing Push
 
Fail said:
I"m waiting for it to come out on DVD or Blu Ray since i'm deaf and they don't offer subtitles or captions in theaters

not gonna pay $10 for a ticket + food for a slideshow
Click to expand...

Derangel said:
Ya know, I bet there is money to be made in having specialized theaters that show subtitled movies for the hearing impaired. At least in bigger cities.
Click to expand...

My city shows current movies with open captions. Currently Sherlock Holmes is being shown this way four times a day. I've gone to 'em before as sometimes you're not certain what people are saying.
 
Until they adjust the earnings for inflation and admission price difference the total revenue means nothing to me in judging relative popularity
 
piscian18 said:
Not in my Top10 movies ever but definitely should fit nicely in my Top20(I'm an artfuck.), but yeah everyone ignores this point. Cameron wrote this in 1994-96 it predates all the repetitive crap that's come out and considering the length and content of the film it was extremely uncompromising and not all kid friendly.
Click to expand...

maybe if it was released back then I would have considered it a truly groundbreaking film (beyond the graphics)
the story was good, even "great" if you curve it against typical popcorn films
but I find it laughable when people try to crown this the next star wars/terminator/matrix
 
Phoenix333 said:
I think the use of the term unobtainium is just slang for "mineral that is almost impossible to get and worth boatloads of money" as opposed to the actual scientific name of whatever fictional material they were looking for. In fact, if you look it up that's pretty much how the name is defined: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobtanium Cameron just took the word and applied it appropriately so he didn't have to go into exposition about the properties of the stuff and instead just use it as a plot device: We want it, they're in the way, something has got to give. It's the sci-fi equivalent of gold, ivory, jade, diamonds, uranium, etc - whatever is the money mineral of the day that, in the minds of some, is worth uprooting an entire culture over. It's not like that hasn't happened before, so exactly what the mineral does isn't really important to the story, only the fact that it's there.
Click to expand...

I realise that. I know unobtanium is an 'unobtainable material'. But if the writers aren't willing to devote the time to come up with a material, even a made up one, with a set of properties and a reason why it is so valued beyond 'it is really really expensive', then it lets the viewer know the actual political and economical situation of the humans isn't important at all.

Perhaps the material could have been a miracle cure to some strange plague that had afflicted almost all of the population of the Earth, and humanity was dying out until they found it. Suddenly that's the only thing that can save them. So it's not a matter of greed anymore, but one of survival. Would give the whole story a different outlook.

However, if you know from the onset that you're being given a caricature of one side, you know the story doesn't really matter so much. It's just a stock story I've seen a thousand times, retold with awesome visuals and effects. And hey, I'll go watch that. But I don't think it's a profound look into the human condition, and any message it has is clearly not going to be well articulated.
 
Kynnath said:
I realise that. I know unobtanium is an 'unobtainable material'. But if the writers aren't willing to devote the time to come up with a material, even a made up one, with a set of properties and a reason why it is so valued beyond 'it is really really expensive', then it lets the viewer know the actual political and economical situation of the humans isn't important at all.

Perhaps the material could have been a miracle cure to some strange plague that had afflicted almost all of the population of the Earth, and humanity was dying out until they found it. Suddenly that's the only thing that can save them. So it's not a matter of greed anymore, but one of survival. Would give the whole story a different outlook.

However, if you know from the onset that you're being given a caricature of one side, you know the story doesn't really matter so much. It's just a stock story I've seen a thousand times, retold with awesome visuals and effects. And hey, I'll go watch that. But I don't think it's a profound look into the human condition, and any message it has is clearly not going to be well articulated.
Click to expand...

http://james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Unobtainium
 
uclajd said:
Too bad this great CGI is wasted on such a preposterously cliched, liberal guilt trip of a story. "Oh, we humans should feel guilty because we want to wipe out the poor, peaceful space Indians." Bleech.
Click to expand...

One of those huh? great. I was kinda wanting to go see it.
 
I realise that. I know unobtanium is an 'unobtainable material'. But if the writers aren't willing to devote the time to come up with a material, even a made up one, with a set of properties and a reason why it is so valued beyond 'it is really really expensive', then it lets the viewer know the actual political and economical situation of the humans isn't important at all.

Perhaps the material could have been a miracle cure to some strange plague that had afflicted almost all of the population of the Earth, and humanity was dying out until they found it. Suddenly that's the only thing that can save them. So it's not a matter of greed anymore, but one of survival. Would give the whole story a different outlook.

However, if you know from the onset that you're being given a caricature of one side, you know the story doesn't really matter so much. It's just a stock story I've seen a thousand times, retold with awesome visuals and effects. And hey, I'll go watch that. But I don't think it's a profound look into the human condition, and any message it has is clearly not going to be well articulated.
Click to expand...

The movie is actually pretty well thought out, and amazing amount of thought has gone in to all aspects of the movie

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/43440
- A professor of Astrophysics grades the science of Avatar
 
For those that get motion sickness from gaming try ginger or ginger altoids.

For those that get headaches from 3D movies try asprin or ibuprofen.
 
Draax said:
http://james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Unobtainium
Click to expand...

Huh, nifty. Now if only they had put some of that on the movie, instead of the main character's boring monologues, it'd be awesome.

Still doesn't excuse the lack of sense many of the characters display.

*** SPOILER ***



I like to imagine that the surviving humans getting shipped home sued the company to oblivion for starting a war without provocation which they then lost and endagering the workers :p



*** SPOILER ***
 
bighirst said:
The movie is actually pretty well thought out, and amazing amount of thought has gone in to all aspects of the movie

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/43440
- A professor of Astrophysics grades the science of Avatar
Click to expand...

I didn't knock the science of the movie, other than the floating mountains nothing seemed amiss to me. It's the humans that bothered me.

About the science though, one other thing did bother me, now that I think about it. The guy in the link didn't mention it though. The 'animals' all have six limbs. So why do the Na'Vi only have four?
 
Kynnath said:
I didn't knock the science of the movie, other than the floating mountains nothing seemed amiss to me. It's the humans that bothered me.

About the science though, one other thing did bother me, now that I think about it. The guy in the link didn't mention it though. The 'animals' all have six limbs. So why do the Na'Vi only have four?
Click to expand...

I was just mentioning it because of all the thought that went into the small details.

Cameron probably didn't give the Navi the extra feet just to make them feel more human, so that we could relate to them more. That's my guess at least.

Interesting stuff on Pandora's atmosphere:

The increased air resistance within the twenty-percent denser atmosphere has a number of effects:

-taken from
http://james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Pandora

- Lower terminal velocity. combined with Pandora's twenty-percent lower gravity, a freely falling object's maximum speed is significantly less than on earth. A Na'vi who happens to fall from a flying banshee (Ikran) has a good chance of surviving uninjured if they are over a forested area. Even over water, falling spread-eagled can reduce their speed sufficiently to allow an impact with the surface that will not knock them unconscious.

- The increased mass of the denser air means that more force is required to accelerate it as it is moved out of the path of a moving object. Humans on Pandora experience this when they try to run - it feels like there is a wind blowing against them, even though the air is still. They are further hampered by the fact that the reduced gravity causes their boots to slip more readily on paved or smooth surfaces, giving them less traction to force their bodies forward. The Na'vi compensate for this loss of frictional force by curling their large toes into the soft ground, and pandorian six-legged animals use their many feet to gain a purchase on protruding rocks or small crevices.

- Flying animals can take advantage of both the lower gravity, which reduces the weight of their body, and the increased air density, which requires more force to displace with the downward/rearward stroke of their wings, and thus gives the animals body more impetus with each flap. The downside is that the denser air is harder to move through, and requires highly-efficient streamlining to achieve high flight speeds.

- Plants are subject to greater forces from the wind, since the greater air density means that the moving air carries more kinetic energy and more momentum, and the plants, leaves, stems, branches, and trunks must all have a greater strength and/or flexibility to resist it.
 
Drax, and bighirst, thanks for the background information! That adds some depth to the freaky environment. I am corrected. If that were explained in the film through a little exposition, it would have made Pandora even more fascinating and a bit more understandable as to why they had floating rocks beyond the fact that it was some strange electromagnetic anomaly. Then again, I might have missed some background when I saw the film.
 
I just got back from seeing this in IMAX 3D. The only way I can explain this movie is that it is like a conscious dream. Your brain knows that its not real because nothing fits anything you are familiar with. But it is so f*cking flawless that your brain is forced to accept it as reality. And the 3D immersion is excellent....I mean that, completely natural.
 
westrock2000 said:
I just got back from seeing this in IMAX 3D. The only way I can explain this movie is that it is like a conscious dream. Your brain knows that its not real because nothing fits anything you are familiar with. But it is so f*cking flawless that your brain is forced to accept it as reality. And the 3D immersion is excellent....I mean that, completely natural.
Click to expand...

+1
That's how I felt EXACTLY when I went to watch it in the local IMAX.
Goddamnit. I can't wait for it to come out on BluRay
 
Phoenix333 said:
Drax, and bighirst, thanks for the background information! That adds some depth to the freaky environment. I am corrected. If that were explained in the film through a little exposition, it would have made Pandora even more fascinating and a bit more understandable as to why they had floating rocks beyond the fact that it was some strange electromagnetic anomaly. Then again, I might have missed some background when I saw the film.
Click to expand...

No, you didn't miss a thing - it was utterly unexplained why anyone cared so much about this mineral, and why it's worth so much money. The fact that a Wiki entry has to establish that simple fact is inexcusable. The film was gorgeous, but Cameron really needs a lesson in subtlety.
 
radioactivez0r said:
No, you didn't miss a thing - it was utterly unexplained why anyone cared so much about this mineral, and why it's worth so much money.
Click to expand...
For those scientifically inclined, you could surmise that it was a room temperature semiconductor from the fact that it was floating.
 
Everyone QQin about the "liberal" agenda in the storyline, and also those raving about the well developed story, need to stop. The story in this movie follows the most basic general plot that's been rehashed a thousand times: man meets natives, bad guy kills natives, man defends natives, man joins natives. See:

poca2u.jpg
 
I didn't really want to see it. I typically avoid films that make giant marketing blitzes; the best films generate their own hype. A friend ended up asking me to go so I obliged, and then got dragged into the 3D version because it was the quickest showing... film was ok, but I wasn't fond of the headache I had for the next 4 hours.
 
Derangel said:
Ya know, I bet there is money to be made in having specialized theaters that show subtitled movies for the hearing impaired. At least in bigger cities.
Click to expand...

Better yet, someone needs to come out with some glasses or something for the hearing impaired that show the subtitles...that way they can only see the subtitles.
 
loved this movie. My ass on the other hand went numb. A little too long for sitting @ IMAX.

Blue-ray is where this is going to make another billion.
 
I'm too cheap to go see it at $10 for me and the wife. I will wait for it to hit the $2 theatres.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top