Continuing on with the Special Effects movie marathon, one of the biggest movies released in my lifetime. I remember when Avatar came out, everyone went mad over it, it was the Jurassic Park of the 2000s, one of the greatest movies ever made, and the highest grossing movie of the year, decade, and of all time before it was overtaken by Avengers: Endgame. It was a movie everybody saw, except for me. I never saw this movie until I decided to do this marathon for my blog. I never really had the desire to see this movie, so after about thirteen years after its initial release, what are my thoughts on it?
The plot is fairly standard. Ex-Marine Jake Sully is sent to the alien planet of Pandora, in an effort to study the native inhabitants and find a way to make them leave so they can mine gold... no wait that was Pocahontas... Uh it was... kill all of them to expand their city... No that was Wolfwalkers... right it was to mine Unobtanium, wow that name is spectacularly terrible. Anyway, Jake enters in an "Avatar" essentially a meat puppet he controls, and learns the ways of the Na'vi people. Of course the plot has to happen so there's gonna be conflict and you know how these stories go, the liar revealed, the war between the two people, there's not a whole lot special here. Honestly, the plot is kind of mixed for me. On the one hand, I really love watching Sully learn the ways of the Na'vi, I like seeing his video diaries about what it's like learning their ways and experiencing their culture. It goes back to what I said about The Three Caballeros movie, it is way more interesting learning about these cultures than it is just seeing them. On the other hand, the rest of the movie is pretty much a standard boring action flick. It's got all the stuff you would expect, it even has that one type of sequence I despise in movies. You know the ones, it's the sequence of shots that are slow motion of battle scenes, explosions, people caught in explosions, people getting gunned down, and this dramatic orchestral music comes in, sometimes they have a dramatic singer as well, I effectively dub these the "War is Hell Sequence", but I don't know if they are called anything else. It's just cheap emotional manipulation. I was interested in the first half, but after the military stuff came back into the picture, I just lost a lot of interest. In fact I think I was withdrawing interest from the bits I liked, because I knew that the stuff I wasn't going to like was coming. Is that a thing that people can do?
Character wise, I mean, you don't have a very unique selection, but they're palatable. Jake Sully is your typical kind of protagonist, not really too much special about him, other than the fact that he's in a wheelchair, which I guess is kind of cool. You also have the Colonel, Miles Quaritch, and yes, I did have to look up his name. As soon as he appeared on screen my immediate thought was "Oh, he's the bad guy, the General Rourke." He even kind of looks like Rourke, doesn't he? The rest of the cast are.. fine. They do the jobs they are required, the actors give fine performances, I just don't think I could tell you anything about them off the top of my head. It's a shame because Sigourney Weaver is one of my favourite actors, and she stars in Alien, one of my all-time favourite movies. I was interested in the world they set-up, but I was not as invested in the characters, I think that is the best way I can put it.
The visual effects are spectacular, too much. The visuals are beautiful, and I can imagine seeing this in IMAX in a dark room, if I did see this movie back in 2009, I probably would have loved it. The thing is though, and this is going to sound absolutely weird, but I feel like this movie should have been entirely animated. Now I am not the kind of person who says that in most cases, Marvel movies, totally fine with them being live-action, Disney live action remakes, I mean we already have animated versions of them so who cares? Other kinds of special effects movies, perfectly fine with them being partially animated. It's just that in this case, you have all these amazing looking animal and plant designs, and you put them right next to realistic looking settings and real actors, they just don't look real. Like, imagine if this movie was completely animated, wouldn't the designs mesh better in the settings they created? If it was fully animated, I genuinely believe that this could have been the movie that made animation the respected medium it deserves to be. I mean this movie made 3D films much more popular, why could it not have done the same for animation?
Honestly, I really, really wanted to like this movie. But the boring second half, the bland characters and the amazing effects that really made me wish this movie was fully animated, just really keep me from enjoying it as much as everyone else has. Maybe though, I am enjoying it as much as everyone else. Like, for a little while I kept hearing of Avatar, but around the mid to late 2010s I heard not a peep about this movie, the only Avatar that mattered to everybody was The Last Airbender, in fact the most I heard of it was when Avengers: Endgame was released and I saw people on Twitter talking about how it would soon overtake Avatar. It really does seem like this movie was big for its time, but left no impact, but then again there is that upcoming sequel slated for release this year. I am curious, because I am interested in seeing how the world building will improve and if the characters will become a bit more defined. I can't say I really like this film, but I can respect what it tried to accomplish. On top of that, I totally get why everyone went nuts over it, it is a big movie, in the sense that it just feels like an event. So, now the question is if I recommend it and... on one hand I can, I do think this is a movie you should watch at least once, even if it doesn't sound up your alley. On the other hand, it is hard for me to really say it's a must see. I guess the caveat though is that you probably already have seen it. If not, I do give this a slight recommendation, if only to form your own opinion.
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