Naming a Planet "Pandora" is Just Asking For Trouble

[4thofeleven]

So, is anyone actually looking forward to Avatar? There seems to be a massive hype machine going, but I’ve yet to encounter anyone with a more positive impression than “Meh, maybe I’ll see it.” I'm not saying it's going to flop, but it really doesn't seem to have caught anyone's attention.

It occurred to me watching the trailer that I’ve seen this movie before. Well, alright, everyone’s seen this movie before, it looks like your standard ‘evil exploiters vs noble savages’/’what these people need is a honky’ story. But what it specifically reminded me of was… Star Trek: Insurrection.

I think it’s a bad sign when your massively expensive high profile major movie seems to have little distinguishing it from the most forgettable of the Star Trek movies. And Insurrection at least had Picard, Worf and Data singing Gilbert and Sullivan, which is something I doubt Avatar includes.

I want to see one of these movies where the backward primitives are actually an advanced civilization themselves; they're just pulling a massive con game to play on people's sympathies while they get their own heavy equipment into position.

Comments

[nic]

I definitely fall into the "meh" category. From what I've gathered, it's "advanced CGI"(?) and that always puts me off, no matter how good the story is.

[4thofeleven.livejournal.com]

Spectacle for its own sake isn't neccisarily a bad thing - but for all the hype it's getting, Avatar doesn't seem to be a leap forward in effects the way Terminator 2 or LotR's Gollum or Star Wars or 2001 were - and those movies had the advantage of not being pure cliche as well.

(Well, Star Wars is pure cliche - but it never claimed to be otherwise...)

[nic]

And those are movies that I loved DESPITE the hype. (In fact, I found the hype offputting for all of them! Except 2001, since I wasn't around. ;) )

[veriond.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I am completely uninterested in it. I like the visual look of the blue people, but I'm 90% sure I know exactly what will happen. Because I've seen this story a million times before and there have been no signs that the film is subverting the trope or doing anything different.

The thing that bugs me most about the trope is that the story always follows the exploiter hero (who is always a white male) who interacts with the natives (and inevitably falls in love with an exotic beauty) and decides to save them. The natives never get to tell their own story. It is such a colonialist narrative even as it argues against colonialism.

[4thofeleven.livejournal.com]

Who wants to bet that the protagonist turns out to be more skilled at being a blue alien guy than any of the real blue alien people?

[deaka.livejournal.com]

It's probably a little sad that this reminds me of the Nox on Stargate SG-1, who managed to play off everyone's assumption that they were primitive and backwards to conceal their super-advanced nature... but they didn't actually use it for anything interesting, so the heavy equipment idea's better.

After all the early press for Avatar, I expected a bit more than what the trailer indicated it would be. Familiar story told in the usual way, and the CGI doesn't look spectacular enough to warrant all the hype about changing the face of cinema -- possibly one of those instances where excessive buildup will hurt rather help?