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Film Avatar: The Way of Water |ST| In Theaters Dec 16

My brother's in town for the holidays and I finally finished most of the Christmas prep so we went out to see that.

And HOLY FUCK.

Probably one of the best-looking films I’ve ever seen. Story’s a bit dumb but I prefer this kind of old-school earnestness over the cynical stuff we usually get nowadays.

Also I still feel like HFR makes 3D less tiresome for the eyes, but that may be placebo effect.
 
just came back from watching it a second time; the first third really is a bit of a mess, but the middle hour is a chill delight and the last hour is flat-out incredible. I could study the faces in this movie for ages.
 
kvetcha said:
just came back from watching it a second time; the first third really is a bit of a mess, but the middle hour is a chill delight and the last hour is flat-out incredible. I could study the faces in this movie for ages.
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Well said, just saw it myself and felt the same!

Middle part was my favorite because.. no humans lol
 
Oh and my screening froze right during the arm scene which was brutal

Then a few more times after before they had to reboot. Luckily it was a pretty empty theater.

Losing my mind at some folks on another forum claiming the CGI isn’t special and “they could tell”

Lmao I told u blue people aren’t real! Taking me right back to 2007
 
Finally seeing this in IMAX today, I hope it's as good as people are saying. I couldn't sleep last night, I haven't been this excited for a blockbuster since Shin Godzilla lol.
 
Today I learned Cameron and his wife and buddies once tripped acid in the great outdoors back in the 70s and accidentally chucked a bag full of shotgun shells on their campfire.

 
I have some mixed feelings about the movie. It was visually striking to be sure, and the basic story was more interesting to me than the original. That said, it's a little long in the tooth and I couldn't be bothered to care about any of the specific characters (though I enjoyed the Reef Tribe asa whole).
 
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samouraï said:
Finally seeing this in IMAX today, I hope it's as good as people are saying. I couldn't sleep last night, I haven't been this excited for a blockbuster since Shin Godzilla lol.
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this is the only cameron film that made me cry what the fuck it is so beautiful and sincere
 
merp said:
Is this movie better than the first?

I didn't like the first, but I may watch this.

I am somewhat interested in the "universe" of James Cameron's Avatar series.
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Honestly both movies are worth seeing on the biggest screen you can with the best sound system you can because of how good it looks.
 
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Party Sklar said:
My brother's in town for the holidays and I finally finished most of the Christmas prep so we went out to see that.

And HOLY FUCK.

Probably one of the best-looking films I’ve ever seen. Story’s a bit dumb but I prefer this kind of old-school earnestness over the cynical stuff we usually get nowadays.

Also I still feel like HFR makes 3D less tiresome for the eyes, but that may be placebo effect.
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Yeah I kind of liked the jank lol. It's funny because it felt like a cheesy 90s movie, but instead of the goofy effects to go along with it, it has the best visual effects I've ever seen in my life. Perfect popcorn flick (even though I ran out of popcorn less than halfway through lol). If you go into it thinking of it like a B-action movie with half a billion dollar budget, you'll have a much better time lol
 
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Damn that's the perfect way to describe the Avatar movies. B-tier 90's action flicks with the highest budget you could possibly imagine.

That's like.... exactly why I love these movies so much
 
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I like the movie for its visuals and I thought that the Free Willy part is really cool. But the military story and the whole "Sullys stick together" is really dumb. I mean: „We have all the possible military equipment what we are going into war with a fucking wale boat.“ I wish they would just drop the whole Story and just do a documentary about Pandora, which shows how the people and animals live there. I would watch that for hours.
 
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lexony said:
I like the movie for its visuals and I thought that the Free Willy part is really cool. But the military story and the whole "Sullys stick together" is really dumb. I mean: „We have all the possible military equipment what we are going into war with a fucking wale boat.“ I wish they would just drop the whole Story and just do a documentary about Pandora, which shows how the people and animals live there. I would watch that for hours.
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I think it's more a matter that there's only a certain level of investment the human side is interested in making toward ridding themselves of Sully, and every object that has to be transported to Pandora rather than built there probably carries an extraordinary cost.
 
kvetcha said:
I think it's more a matter that there's only a certain level of investment the human side is interested in making toward ridding themselves of Sully, and every object that has to be transported to Pandora rather than built there probably carries an extraordinary cost.
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I mean the stuff they get from those Tulkun is said to be the most valuable resource for the humans. They literally waste the expensive equipment (and humans that aren‘t soliders) to get to this stuff just to try to capture one single person.
 
lexony said:
I mean the stuff they get from those Tulkun is said to be the most valuable resource for the humans. They literally waste the expensive equipment to get to this stuff just to try to capture one single person.
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Yes but I don't think that was ever really the intent behind the mission. It was a strike team sent to locate and capture one individual. The boat was just a convenient way to keep them in the field at their target location.
 
kvetcha said:
Yes but I don't think that was ever really the intent behind the mission. It was a strike team sent to locate and capture one individual. The boat was just a convenient way to keep them in the field at their target location.
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Yeah I see that. Still I don‘t watch those movies because of the story.
 
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I think it's pretty reductive to dismiss the plot like its some B-tier 90s shit. I can see why some would call it simple but that doesn't detract from how effective it's earnestness is. I don't think I would have cared as much for the familial and environmental themes Cameron intertwined if he himself didn't. It's not done with the subtlety of a sledgehammer because that's all he's capable of, it's because of how much he cares for this stuff. The enthusiasm on display is infectious.
 
samouraï said:
I think it's pretty reductive to dismiss the plot like its some B-tier 90s shit. I can see why some would call it simple but that doesn't detract from how effective it's earnestness is. I don't think I would have cared as much for the familial and environmental themes Cameron intertwined if he himself didn't. It's not done with the subtlety of a sledgehammer because that's all he's capable of, it's because of how much he cares for this stuff. The enthusiasm on display is infectious.
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I never saw the first one, but from the second, I think people underplay how radical it is. This is an alien invasion movie where humans are the invaders & bad guys, which is kind of wild in itself.
The ultimate message of Avatar 2 is that you can't bargain with, reason with, or co-exist with imperialists.

As seen by our friend from Flight of the Conchords, not even the non-cruel enablers of imperialist systems are spared. It's not like the imperialists are just a few bad apples: No system that allows those bad apples to flourish should be allowed to survive at all.

There's a lot of other conversations to be had about it (white saviors, noble savages, the appropriation of human cultures, etc.) of course.
But being after being fed so much milquetoast tripe disguised as empowerment - even from otherwise subversive directors like Spike Lee - I found it really refreshing.


Plus it's just viscerally satisfying to see people get reckd by a fuckin whale
 
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is Avatar about to leave theaters? I can't find any showings within twenty miles of me for this weekend and that seems weird.

and it's not just avatar either. The big cinemark in my town only has one movie available to purchase tickets for this friday, M3gan, which looks like a Chucky movie? Just weird. It's the same with my local Regal as well.
 
Red Monster said:
is Avatar about to leave theaters? I can't find any showings within twenty miles of me for this weekend and that seems weird.

and it's not just avatar either. The big cinemark in my town only has one movie available to purchase tickets for this friday, M3gan, which looks like a Chucky movie? Just weird. It's the same with my local Regal as well.
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Sometimes this happens while they add showings for the upcoming week. Avatar is going to remain the biggest wide release for a while yet. It just made more this weekend than it did on its 2nd weekend.
 
What a wonderful Lisa Frank trapper keeper of a movie


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The constant switching between 24 FPS and 48 FPS was extremely distracting to me, so much so that it was hard for me to enjoy how admittedly beautiful the environments and CG were at times. The storyline feels like it's designed to make Avatar into more of a franchise than a one-off, with the characters of Jake's family being a lot more fleshed out and the world of Pandora being something interesting enough to build "lore" around. It works but I'm also not sure if it's something I'm really invested in like I would be in franchises I really care about. I still enjoyed it a good deal though.
 
Party Sklar said:
Story’s a bit dumb but I prefer this kind of old-school earnestness over the cynical stuff we usually get nowadays.
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Honestly, yeah. It’s weirdly refreshing to see a story (even a not super groundbreaking one) that takes itself seriously and isn’t trying to be some meta self-aware “did that just happen?” “yeah, i think that just happened” thing where everyone is constantly winking at the audience.

It’s not subtle but it is earnest and there is something really appealing about that.
 
merp said:
Is this movie better than the first?

I didn't like the first, but I may watch this.

I am somewhat interested in the "universe" of James Cameron's Avatar series.
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I definitely liked it more than the first. They added more characters with much more personality than Jake “Jarhead” Sully from the first movie, and even Jake sees some character development and a more established personality here.

The first movie honestly took me a few different tries to get through (didn’t see it in theaters) but with this movie it honestly didn’t feel like a three hour movie to me. I only got a sense that we had to be nearing the climax of the movie because the final setpiece sequence was so cool.

That’s just my opinion though, take it as you will. I kind of want to see it again in theaters and I was never that big of a fan of the first one.
 
Gay Bowser said:
I definitely liked it more than the first. They added more characters with much more personality than Jake “Jarhead” Sully from the first movie, and even Jake sees some character development and a more established personality here.

The first movie honestly took me a few different tries to get through (didn’t see it in theaters) but with this movie it honestly didn’t feel like a three hour movie to me. I only got a sense that we had to be nearing the climax of the movie because the final setpiece sequence was so cool.

That’s just my opinion though, take it as you will. I kind of want to see it again in theaters and I was never that big of a fan of the first one.
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I still think Jake is a giant jarhead dork, but I like Neytiri and the children and the new cast members, so TWoW has a whole is just vastly more appealing to me than the first. I'm emotionally engaged with the family (and even Quaritch, somehow?) more than I ever was with Jake as lone protagonist.
 
kvetcha said:
I still think Jake is a giant jarhead dork, but I like Neytiri and the children and the new cast members, so TWoW has a whole is just vastly more appealing to me than the first. I'm emotionally engaged with the family (and even Quaritch, somehow?) more than I ever was with Jake as lone protagonist.
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Oh yeah he’s still, like, not the most interesting character, so I think sort of recasting the series as a family saga makes a lot of sense. If this was just another Jake Sully movie I don’t think I would have liked it so much.

I do appreciate that the writing team is willing to allow Jake to do things that they know the audience will find unlikeable, like be overly hard on his kids.
 
Gay Bowser said:
Oh yeah he’s still, like, not the most interesting character, so I think sort of recasting the series as a family saga makes a lot of sense. If this was just another Jake Sully movie I don’t think I would have liked it so much.

I do appreciate that the writing team is willing to allow Jake to do things that they know the audience will find unlikeable.
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Agreed. I honestly like Jake fine in this one, now that he has the rest of his family members to bounce off of. And I appreciate that the movie itself is pretty critical of his whole Military Man persona.
 
Saw it a second time, and I liked it even more.
I guess I sort of sat into the Cameron 90s-feeling dialog this time, and things like the monologues and family interactions just landed so much more for me. I noticed way more details. Even Spider and Quaritches relationship felt more compelling and I was able to look past the ‘cheese’ I felt from the first viewing.

And hell, both times the way of water phrase is said felt frickin majestic. I almost teared up too. As cheesy as some of it can be, the sincerity is really there.

I think the first viewing I was so wrapped up in it all I was being more skeptical of the story and character beats. This time I was able to relax a bit more and take it for what it is and I don’t know why but it just felt like a magical damn cinema experience I haven't felt in ages.

I think I’m going to go a 3rd time.
 


definitely not gonna win but im surprised this and top gun both got bp noms. cameron got snubbed with directing but he'll probably get it with one of the three sequels lol
 
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Finally got my tickets and saw the film with my partner yesterday. We got the full 3D experience on the big IMAX screen at our local multiplex, but unfortunately it wasn't the HFR version. Thoughts:

1) It's a much, much better film than the first one. The story works much better as a family ensemble rather than focusing on one single character, and having multiple characters going out and exploring the world makes for a much more engaging way of being drawn in that just having the one main character reacting to everything.

2) That being said, it's still very very derivative of the first film. Many of the story beats are the same and take place at similar points as the first (The Sullys must learn to adapt to a new environment / The local Navi mock them for being incompetent / the humans commit an atrocity against the local environment that stirrs the locals against them / the Navi lead an attack on the big human gunship). It's a better version of the story, and there are some interesting developments along the way (Spider and Kiri, namely) but for Avatar 3 I think Cameron really needs to get outside his comfort zone and present something completely different now.

3) I don't think the film successfully navigates around the white saviour-ness of the first film. Sully's more of a supporting character in TWoW, and the producers did a great job of getting Maori actors and crew involved in the design and backstory of the Metkayina, but there are still some stumbles: Sully is still presented as the greatest warrior who leads the Navi fight against the humans (when he could have been better placed as a warrior and tactician who still has to obey the Navi leadership), and Kira being Navi Jesus while also being the daughter of Sigourney Weaver's Avatar seems... iffy. That being said, this is all stuff that comes from a well intentioned place and seems like genuine writing stumbles as opposed to anything outright racist or cynical (see: Ray Fischer's treatment in the original Justice League) so I'm not going to get too upset about it, although I do think indigenous criticism of the film is absolutely valid.

4) The spectacle is absolutely incredible, and it blows any Marvel or DC film out of the water in terms of action. It's also a total Cameron film: Anyone complaining about him making Avatar films and not making something like his 80s or 90s films needs to look again at all the army tech, marine banter, science porn, and machismo posing and posturing. It's basically James Cameron Greatest Hits performed by the Blue Man Group, and works best on that level. The underwater scenes are absolutely breathtaking, and the best use of 3D I've seen in the cinema. I do want to see more big budget blockbusters make use of 3D again: I know some people see it as a gimmick, but I do love the immersion it brings to the experience.

5) Payakan was the MVP of the film

6) Part of me wishes the film leant more into the alien-ness of Pandora, but it seems like Cameron is more interested in it as a setting where everything is a counterpart to Earth, and given the environmmental message the film is pushing I can't begrudge him that. It does make Pandora seem less alien and more just like an alternate earth when you have whale aliens that move, socialize and communicate the exact same as earth whales, but if it gets more people in the anti-whaling and pro-environment movements then go for it.

7) Most of the film flew by, but the ending needed to be tightened up. You essentially have two separate acts where Sully's kids get captured, he goes to turn himself in/rescue them and a big action setpiece ensues. They should have been consolidated into one sequence rather than happening back to back like that.

I really do want to go see it again just to soak up the spectacle of it all
 
I went to see this in a Laser IMAX in Singapore with low expectations, which were generally surpassed.
I usually dislike 3D in cinema because of the lack of brightness but Laser IMAX compensated enough.
The story wasn't great, some dialogue very ropey and some nonsensical stuff, like everyone speaking English.
However, it is a visual marvel, I gasped in delight at the beauty of some scenes.
Meh movie, amazing feast for the eyes and ears.
 
Armoured_Bear said:
some nonsensical stuff, like everyone speaking English.
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this was handwaved Hunt-for-the-Red-October style with Na’vi transitioning into English while Jake’s kids are arguing. From that point on it’s consistently played such that when Na’vi are alone in a scene, it’s assumed they are speaking their native tongue, and the movie only distinguishes spoken language when humans/recoms are involved.
 
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