Oolite Bulletins

I really, really liked Avatar - heroes you could root for, bad guys you could boo and plenty of time to take in the masterful real star of the show the low-g world of Pandora itself and its xeno-ecosystem.

I've seen it twice (with and without contact lenses) and if I get chance I will see it a 3rd time.

I really don't care that it's "Dances with Blue Aliens" or "Pochahontas in space" - I'm just glad I got 2hrs 40mins of gorgeous entertainment for my tenner.

I saw "Pocahontas dances with aliens" in 3d over in Cardiff, and loved it to death, don't care that the plot was so hackneyed it could have had a taxi sign on the top, it was a fun movie, and the effects were eye candy beyond anything else out there.
It was a great movie, and I loved it, and the alien world was a master-class in making something truly alien that you could actually believe in. It had concepts that added a whole pile of spice to the plot we've all seen 20 times or more in the past.
And to be honest, it was the spice that was interesting, not the plot.
The plot is basicly:
Hero gets dumped in place which is alien/foreign to him by what should be the good guys. Hero discovers his bosses aren't as good as they should be, and sides with other lot to fight his former bosses.
Think last samurai, dances with wolves, and many more.
Remember, the plot for Starwars ep 4 was cribbed almost wholesale from a book on how to make a successful movie.

allikat wrote:

Remember, the plot for Starwars ep 4 was cribbed almost wholesale from a book on how to make a successful movie.

I thought that Lucas based the plot around the idea of the "monomyth" in Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces ... or is that a myth too?

THWATF is a fantastic book, by the way. Not a bad sound effect, either ...

allikat wrote:

Remember, the plot for Starwars ep 4 was cribbed almost wholesale from a book on how to make a successful movie.

Or possibly from The Hidden Fortress, although Lucas claims he only copied techniques and the near-identical story is a coincidence.

In reality, of course, there are way too many influences to point at a specific one and say “this is it”.

Selezen wrote:

Thargoid wrote:

It could have been worse, just think how it might have turned out if Cameron hadn't been watching Dances with Wolves the night before...

No no no... Not Dances With Wolves...

http://failblog.org/2010/01/10/avatar-plot-fail/

Ahruman wrote:

Or, for the video generation, http://vimeo.com/9389738.

"Dances with Wolves"? "Pocahontas"? Hmmm, yeah, of course.

But: Good fights evil in a movie that converts live acting into animation? Now what does that remind me of?

Ooh! Here's an entertaining article, by David Brin: he deals with Joseph Campbell's "monomyth" idea, and produces an argument as to why Star Trek is better than Star Wars ...

"Star Wars" despots vs. "Star Trek" populists

Disembodied wrote:

Ooh! Here's an entertaining article, by David Brin: he deals with Joseph Campbell's "monomyth" idea, and produces an argument as to why Star Trek is better than Star Wars ...

"Star Wars" despots vs. "Star Trek" populists

Insightful analysis. Helps me understanding why I haven't watched any of the prequels to this very day.

That's a good article... Brin is such a good writer. Thanks, Disembodied.