Avatari

Yes, that's right, I've seen the latest special effects film. Let's not pretend here, that's the reason people are going to see it, nothing to with the plot, the characters, the originality, all of which are missing, but for the effects.

The idea is that Great White Man saves the Noble Savage... and that's about it. (Go see Overthinking for a great piece written before the film's release about why this film will suck.) So much for that. And yes, the characters are as superficial.

But at least we have lots of lovely CGI, which we haven't seen before. Oh, hang on, we have! Cameron had to wait for nearly a decade for the effects to be affordable, but in the intervening time, it's not like we haven't had CGI epics already on our screen. And before he started planning the movie as it happens. Because, no matter how good the computer created creatures (including the Navajo... I mean, Na'Vi) are... they are still computer created, and they obviously are. I'm not sure what is so innovative about this that we are supposed to go 'wooo', but it's not for the seamless way the effects blend together.

(And I would also like to complain about the evolution of the species. Major 'themes' of this picture are savage vs coloniser, religion vs science, nature vs machine, and one better hope for an intelligent designer because I'm highly skeptical they could have developed so integrated together. Oh, and adding another pair of fore-limbs does not a credible alien monster make.)

Apparently one should see this in 3D, not in 2D. Yet another reason that the point of this movie is the effects...

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