All posts in Rant

Avatar (2009), Initial Impression [SPOILERS]

By | 20 December 2009 | Movies, Rant | 8 Comments

In case you didn’t not noticed in the title there, this post has spoilers. And, in case you do not know what spoilers are, its when you write about something that happens in a film, book, whatever. Some people believe that this “spoils” the story for them. So, if you don’t like spoilers, do not read past this point. Oh, also, this post was not proofread. :wink:

SPOILERS

The movie was pretty good. I am both excited to see another original science fiction movie this year, and disappointed that it used one of my ideas (humans as the evil invaders). I am sure may people are going to dissuaded by the length of the film (161 minutes), but it really doesn’t feel that long. And, the length allowed for a proper exposition.

Unfortunately, as you probably know from all the ads for the movie (vanberge has informed me that there are many of them) that the movie has a strong CGI look. This is pretty consistent throughout the entire film. I would say it looks kind of like the next generation of the visuals used in Final Fantasy the Spirit(s) Within.

Initially, the visuals are quite impressive. And, its is clear that a lot of effort and planning went into making this project. The awe of the visuals wears off pretty quickly. After you are done being distracted by all the “purdy colors” you start to get to the core mechanics of the film. At its core, the film is pretty humdrum. It has many formulaic elements, such as the “tough” old mercenary. The money driven corporate director. The scientist without any respect for “jar heads.” The star crossed lovers, etc, etc, etc… So, despite being an original idea, there is not a whole lot about it that is original.

There are also some weird mixed messages in the film. Some people have been talking about topics of imperialism, and biodiversity. However, these topics are only addressed in the most superficial sense. Sure, you have the more advanced race coming in to dominate the backwards civilization. However this whole theme breaks down in the end when the primitive tribal people win.

That’s right. The blue people, with bows and arrows defeat mechanized infantry, air ships, and all kinds of things. It shatters the suspensions of the disbelief for the film. I do not care if you are supposed to be rooting for the blue people, they would have been crushed, without question.

However, I will concede the that tactics the humans used were incredibly stupid. I guess in this new space age of 2154 the human race has forgotten rocket science. Seems to me that it would made a lot more sense to bombard the stick people with artillery/missiles from a safe distance. Instead, they decided to fly in low so they were completely vulnerable. And, yes I remember in the film when they tried to explain this all away with “magical” interference from whatever. But, you don’t need a GPS / laser guided missile. Lets use math people.

The whole romance angle of the film didn’t do anything for me. I suppose it was pretty convenient that they happened upon a planet with a humanoid race that has such similar social norms as humanity. Granted, they are animist beliefs, but there are humans who believe in that crap. I did not really relate to the transformation of the main character. He seemed to have developed some kind of dissociative disorder, and allowed his fantasy world to supersede reality. Unfortunately, this problem had dire consequences.

Sure, he saved hundreds of sentient life forms, but I cannot even imagine the economic harm that was wrought when the company was forced to leave the planet. After loosing access to such a rich supply of a valuable resource must have sent their stock into a downward spiral. Think of the poor investors!

Granted the way the company handled the situation was also flawed. The Na’vi (blue people) just happened to have built an entire tribe over top of a huge mineral deposit. They should have known better, perhaps if they were so dedicated to living like savages they could have done something about it.

Speaking of savages…the Na’vi worship some kind of organic neural network. This network allows them to store and retrieve memories at certain data port trees. It seems to me that if you were able to build such a wealth of generational knowledge you would be able to develop a pretty advanced civilization. Instead the system just seems to re-enforce their ignorance.

I found myself quite conflicted during the final battle. I wanted to root for the humans, since I am a human. But, the movie tried hard to make the humans unlikeable, and the Na’vi the scrappy underdogs. So, I ended up just watching the sequence on the screen wondering if the unintelligent humans, or the valiant savages were going to win the day, not caring one way or the other.

Ultimately, the movie had an entirely too saccharine sweet ending. Their only real loses were the annoying scientist that at one time hated Jake Sully, and then liked him later one without any on screen explanation why. And, the pilot played by the dreadful Michelle Rodriguez, so once again no big loss.

There is a big “happy ending” sequence, where the “hero” has his human body killed, and all his memories transferred into his Avatar. I guess this is good because it means he doesn’t need to use the machines to connect to the Avatar anymore. And, he doesn’t have to go back to his human life that he has abandoned. Unfortunately, all he had to do was die to achieve the goal. Lovely.

His teacher, become lover survived. And, the once tribal leader in waiting was killed in the battle with the humans, so that took care of a nasty issue, since he was supposed to mate with Neytiri before Jake cockblocked him. The company personnel were forced to the leave the planet, but if they’re smart they would just come back with some orbital payloads and wipe out the Na’vi. But, they proved without a doubt in this film that they are not smart.

While I think the film was pretty average, I do support original science fiction, and I do think the visuals are worth seeing on the big screen, so I am going to give this movie a 2. Feel free to see it.

Avatar, Before the Movie Began

By | 18 December 2009 | General, Movies, Rant | 3 Comments

Originally this post was going to be broken into two parts. The first part was just to have some general thoughts on the experience. The second part was to have  thoughts on the film, and will as such contain spoilers. Unfortunately, while I was typing my battery died. And, while I was walking to the power adapter died the backup battery died. I lost my train of thought, so I am just going to post the first part so you have something to read now. And, I’ll probably finish the second part later.

Part 1: Before the Movie Began

Midnight showings are the best time to see a film generally speaking. For the most part, you avoid crowds this way, unless the film is expected to be really big, like Transformers, or Batman. So, I first did a drive by the other theater at 11:45 to make sure that it wasn’t packed to the brim. No movie is worth sitting in a packed theater. Luckily there were not to many people there. They filled about half the capacity.

Normally, I do not get concessions at the theater because they are so expensive, but tonight I made an exception. If figured if the movie was boring I might need the caffeine to stay awake through it (wish I would have done that for King Kong). Goodrich theaters gives out coupons if you subscribe to their spam, so I printed one out before I left. Unfortunately, you have to use it on a combo (soft drink and popcorn), but it is cheaper than just buying a soft drink at full price.

So, I walked into the theater with my concessions. I normally sit towards the front at the far side directly behind the rail. Its a good spot, because few people sit that far from the center, and I can just climb directly over the rail. Typically, this isn’t a problem because my hands are empty. Getting over the rail was a little more difficult with my hands full. I stepped up to the base of the rails (the seating is elevated about 18″ off the ground), and when I leaned over to set down my stuff my feet slipped. Apparently, they were still wet from walking in on the snow.

My fall was brief, but a bit embarrassing. I went down and slammed my chest into the rail, which in turn caused me to loose my cup and popcorn. The soft drink exploded into a fountain in the air covering me while popcorn rained down on me. So, before the movie even started I got to sit in my seat wet, sticky and covered in popcorn. I got a few stares, but no one said anything.

Harry Potter / How to Waste an Afternoon

By | 16 December 2009 | Rant | 9 Comments

Last night I finished rereading Harry Potter. Its the first time I have picked up the book since the series began to develop momentum many years ago. Not surprisingly, I have come to the same conclusion; Harry Potter is a wretched book.

There are so many problems with the book, I don’t even know where to begin. And, I am not talking about the whole sacrilegious angle. I suppose my biggest gripe would be the style of the writing. It is inconsistent, and agitating. Reading it is like talking to someone that keeps slipping in and out of an irritating accident. This however is just the tip of the iceberg.

One of the things I found most disturbing about the book is the promotion of a strong sense of classism. There is a sharp delineation between the “elite” magic users, and everyone else, whom are referred to as “moggles” with some level of contempt. And, to make the normal people seem even more awful, the author reinforces her stereotype by having the foster family of Harry Potter  behave brutally towards him.

In fact, the whole situation with his family is another annoying facet of the story. The book basically begins with him, as a very young child being dropped off at his Aunt’s house. This was necessary as his parent were slaughtered by a wizard who is apparently not a nice guy. The problem is that his aunts family essentially hate him. In this section of the book, Harry is apparently a well behaved child, but is constantly punished. On, the flip side, once he is taken to the magic fairytale land to learn to be a wizard everything is different.

Harry Potter seems to be a character of opposites. In the regular world, he is good but falls downwards. In the fantasy land, he constantly does foolish things, and is quite reckless. However, the worse he screws up, the more upward he fails. It makes little to no sense. While I agree that no good dead goes unpunished, it is pretty rare that failure is directly rewarded either. And, really is this a lesson we want to teach our children?

I could rant about this forever, but I am going to tie it up here. Upon reading the book twice, and giving it due consideration. I am whole heartily issuing it my lowest possible rating, -5. Please people, avoid this book at all costs.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2007)

By | 14 December 2009 | Rant, Video Games | 2 Comments

This post is mainly to pick up the slack for vanlandw who wanted an outlet to share his thoughts on the game without being obligated to write an entire post about the game. So, he has called upon me to write a rant about it so he can just comment on it. Granted, I haven’t played the game since it first came out, but I do sort of remember what it was like, so here goes:

Modern Warfare was one of the first “realistic” war games that I have been excited about in quite some time. I originally picked up the game because I was glad that someone find made a game that was not World War II, and it was well reviewed. And, yes, before I get any comments about the Tom Clancy games, I am aware that many of them are set in the near future, but they suck, so its basically like they do not exist.

There is one important thing to note about this game; it does not have co-op. Many people feel the strength of the game is its online multiplayer. However, I found it to be quite lackluster. I suppose I have been spoiled by games with more diversity, like Halo. MW consists primarily of death matches, which are not very fun. A lot of people have told me its so good because it has “realistic” weapons, and other such BS. If I wanted to fire realistic guns, I would fire real guns.

Other people feel the campaign is the highlight of the game. And, while it is not bad, it is nothing to write home about. The story they came up with is very formulaic, and is not better than anything you’d expect to see in a summer popcorn flick.

So, thus far I have established that the game is pretty average across the board. Which, is true, but there is one particularly irritating aspect of the game that I found to be quite frustrating (a common theme in the Call of Duty games I have forgotten about), choke points that you are forced to push through. I like to be able to element all the enemies in an area, and then progress. This methodology works pretty well in most video games, and keeps you from getting killed. Unfortunately, there are certain areas in MW where enemies continue to respawn endlessly, so you could never effectively clear out an area. Thus, you are forced to do a rush that will frequently result in your death if you are playing on one of the higher difficulty levels. But, this one really the only thing in the game that really bothered me.

Ultimately, I decided that the game had been considerably overrated. And, while it is a solid enough game for me not to feel ashamed to have it in my collection, it is far from the pinnacle. Thus, due to the lack of replayability, and general averageness of the title, I am going to give it a 0 on the undecim scale.

P.S. I need to get a proof reader.

Top Sign Your Blog is Dying

By | 12 December 2009 | Humorous, Rant | 2 Comments

When you see a tag cloud, and the amount of twitter summary posts dwarfs all other tags it may be time to start writing more than 144 characters at a time. :wink:

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