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[vt_maverick]

...This isn't the first time I have had to alter my story because of released movies - Independence Day forced my first rewrite...

So you also had the idea to use a MacBook to dial-up connect to the alien computer system and distribute a virus?

Sorry for the TJ, but I was a computer science major in college when that movie came out, and you could literally hear the audience groaning at that sequence. Perhaps the single most ridiculous thing I have ever seen in a movie (followed closely by the Transporter 2 sequence where he uses a crane hook to remove the bomb from the bottom of his car).

[nfpgasmask]

LOL, yeah ID4 and Transporter 2 are both HORRID movies.

Roland Emmerich is probably my 2nd most unfavorite director right after Michael Bay. I swear they are two peas in a pod.

Bart

[ZEUS]

So you also had the idea to use a MacBook to dial-up connect to the alien computer system and distribute a virus?

Sorry for the TJ, but I was a computer science major in college when that movie came out, and you could literally hear the audience groaning at that sequence. Perhaps the single most ridiculous thing I have ever seen in a movie (followed closely by the Transporter 2 sequence where he uses a crane hook to remove the bomb from the bottom of his car).

HAHA, oh hell no! Nothing like that. But I did invent Windows 7! I had to rewrite because I had an invading alien race going from solar system to solar system to mine planets (ala Enemy Mind, ID4) and then a humanoid population that fought back (ala every war movie). That's when I started creating the planet the a-holes came from to tell a broader story - cause and effect. I have always tried to maintain the concept as primitivity versus technology for the contrast and depth and message. I'm still very amateur tho and probably have created something stupid within a cool concept, but I try to be conscious of what I am creating.

[kirk hilton]

LOL, yeah ID4 and Transporter 2 are both HORRID movies.

Roland Emmerich is probably my 2nd most unfavorite director right after Michael Bay. I swear they are two peas in a pod.

Bart

I would probably agree with that although to my shame I'm still fond of Stargate. Hey wait a mo, come to think of it ... ain't there similarities between SG and Avatar?

[tom4bren]

Imagine writing an epic story for 20 years - since you were 14 years old you have been adding chapter after chapter, theorizing, conceptualizing, sketching maps, modeling ships, creating creatures, imagining terrains and planets... actually you create a complete solar system even.

So how do you fit in a character for Zeus????

[don moore]

seen it twice... love it..i went out and got one of the toy helicopters ..
very good detail..

[ZEUS]

So how do you fit in a character for Zeus????

A simple lightning bolt into somebody's shorts gives them the gift of arrogance, duh!

[septicmech]

Sucked..... seen this movie before, It was called FernGully...... also sucked.

[nfpgasmask]

Sucked..... seen this movie before, It was called FernGully...... also sucked.

Funny, I know a guy who said Avatar was nothing but a combination of Fern Gully and Pocahontas. I've seen neither so...

Bart

[Stephen Biko]

Sorry for the TJ, but I was a computer science major in college when that movie came out, and you could literally hear the audience groaning at that sequence. Perhaps the single most ridiculous thing I have ever seen in a movie (followed closely by the Transporter 2 sequence where he uses a crane hook to remove the bomb from the bottom of his car).

Awww, come on! That stuff is modern camp. You aren't supposed to believe it, you are supposed to laugh your sass off because it is so ridiculously over the top. Complaining about that sort of thing is like complaining about wire-fu.

Plus, the razor girl character in Transporter 2 was just freaking awesome. I wish they hadn't killed her but instead given her a spin-off film. That actress, btw, can actually act too, she just did a nice little horror flick called "Nine Miles Down" out on dvd and blu-ray.

[crotchrocket]

Actually, one thing that did annoy me was the use of all the Jurasic Park dinosour noises with the animals. It was like they literally raided the sound lab from that movie!

[don moore]

well AVATAR two should be interesting... ill like it also ..I love sci-fi stuff..
I did like MOON.. go check it out.

[Stephen Biko]

Moon was great - especially how most of the outside shots were models in miniature instead of CGI. Apparently it's the first of a trilogy too.

[BigSwede]

Just saw it last night...yep I'm cutting edge all right.

Anyway, I thought it was amazing. Not so much the rather predictable story, but the quantum leap in movie making tech. It reminded me of seeing Star Wars for the first time (back in the olden days), which was another rather standard story with amazing special effects for the time.

The level of detail was extraordinary. Like when the attacking fleet is cruising through the floating mountains, and way down at the bottom of the screen the mist suddenly swirls from the 'copter fans passing by. It made me want to visit there...now that's realism!

[spaceCADETzoom]

I'm such a minority here. I thought it was a big, dumb, ridiculously heavy handed movie. People say Avatar rips off Dances With Wolves, but I think saying that does a disservice to DWW. I have no problem if it liberally cribs from other sources, but I do have a problem when it does it in such a lazy uninspired way. I'm happy with retelling of universal or timeless stories. I'm not OK with crappy retellings. 3D is cool, I guess. But man what a stinker of a story. Smart, Avatar is not. Subtle, nope. I couldn't even get into it on a lowbrow scifi angle--the AMP suits felt ridiculous to me (while the idea of 30mm on tap to the individual soldier is cool, the whole thing in execution is impractical and not even in a cool way); the convenient usb plug on animals, na'vi, plants, etc...seriously? The vehicles..? And other issues (why in the heck do they have a freaking space shuttle to drop some megabomb by flying UNDER the trees?)

I have a big suspension of disbelief threshold, but come on. Maybe I expected too much. My gripes really sum up to one complaint: a focus on SFX leading to a heavy-handed, trite plot--a terrible combination. Which is, to my surprise, the complaint that's usually left to lesser movie makers. That's stuff we say about Devlin/Emmerich. But man, at least Stargate was a better popcorn movie than Avatar. In a year that we had scifi like Moon, how can I be content with "scifi" like Avatar?

And I'm a big, big, big James Cameron fan. Aliens was a 100x better a movie on so many levels.