How can you not like Imax?

Wookie, I used to give you the benefit of the doubt. But. Really?

In my limited experience with Imax movie theaters, you sit way too close to a screen that is way too tall. For an Imax specific movie that is not much of a problem but for a traditional film "ported" to Imax I fail to see the appeal.

Have you tried sitting further back?

Imax screens just tend not to be optimized for the natural viewing aspect. Bigger isn't always better especially when it comes to screens and vaginas.

I'm pretty sure the idea of IMAX is that the image fills your field of view.

mb needs to shut up and go see the movie

Antony brings up a good point ¬_¬

If mb's food budget wasn't astronomical in comparison to the Iraq war he could probably afford to go see it in IMAX 3D.

Wookie06 must be a sucky person to hang out with.

I saw it in IMAX 3D last night. It was a 3 hour version of Pocahontas meets Black Hawk Down. Tremendous waste of money. It was visually breathtaking, but as a story, it was terrible. The other race were just blue native americans. I feel like they didn't even try and develop a unique race of people. They were just very tribal and native american like. Before the battle I was waiting for them to start chanting "SAVAGES, SAVAGES- BARELY EVEN HUMAN!"

THUMBS DOWN.

I think they were supposed to be akin to African tribes more than Native Americans - given that the cast was played by black people. Besides the headdress on the "chief", which looked very Native American.

I thought the Na'vi were a fairly unique race in that while on the surface they didn't appear to be any different from tribes here, they were essentially the planet's immune system. Everything had a symbiosis.

And I was on the verge of respecting SAJN's opinion on film...

Wes Studi is black?

Not that it matters. I think it's silly to look at the actors' race that are portraying CG characters at least as far as drawing the conclusion that the film portrays an event analogous to Africa because of their race. I'm sure however that analogies can be made for many regions where similar intrusive expansion occurred.

The Imax screen I went to was too tall for my taste. I'm assuming that they all have a rather tall aspect ratio. If that is not the case and they are wider now then I still don't really see the point. You could simply sit at the equivalent position in a traditional theater to get the same effect. To each their own, though.

They had the religion and relationship with the land and even culture, very much like Native Americans, their tribal nature was very African and they had a Middle Eastern war cry. They were a compilation of every minority group

I watched it today at a packed theater. The story was rather predictable and cliched at times. Most of the characters were two dimensional archetypes. Yet for some reason I felt drawn to the movie. Perhaps it's due to the stunning visuals and cinematography, which wowed me on numerous occasions. The characters were also likable, I wanted to see the protagonist succeed. Overall, the movie would probably be a 8.5/10 for me.

This sounds like one of those movies that in ten years people will be all like "huh? - what was that again?"

Films that are only good for their visuals die a death after a short while. I'm trying to think of the best example, but I haven't really been round long enough to see a film for it's effects and now you look back and it's crap. There's probably hundreds. Phantom Menace?

The funny part is, I was looking at this thread and was going "wow, not 1 negative review.." then I came to SAJN's post and before I even read it I thought "ok.. here's gonna be the one negative one..."

The movie was visually 5/5, but the story was just bland, the characters were so one dimensional it hurt, and overall the movie was just a major let down. Excuse me for not sucking James Cameron's c*** like the rest of the world.

The movie was as if they took Pocahontas and Ferngully, combined their plots and then removed all the character development and replaced it with visual masturbation and explosions. The characters were TERRIBLE, and by the end of the movie you don't care who dies and who doesn't because you already knew what all of their intentions were from the first five minutes. Nothing surprised me, and the poor dialog and lack of characters took me completely out of the experience. Michelle Rodriguez played the same "I'm a rebel militant with a cause" P.O.S. character she plays in every movie- the colonel was such a generic "OORAH! AMERICA!" military character it was painful to watch. You knew the first time you saw him on screen that he was going to become the 'bad-guy' in the movie. Everything about the movies story was just generic and underdeveloped. Sorry that I'm not some boob that's suckered into believing that 3 hours of CGI without a story is a MASTERPIECE.

Ah, where would we be without SAJN telling us that we're inferior to him because he dislikes a popular movie.

Ontario

SAJN, You have very valid points, and I wasn't saying anything bad about you.. you're just usually very... negative

Ahahaha I just realized, look at the quote in his sig. I guess he liked it when Serj Tankian said it, just not when James Cameron made a movie to say it.

Isn't it weird how it took you 3 seconds to read my signature and you got just as much out of it as you did in that 3 hour atrocity?

I think atrocity is a bit strong. I would just say it was a mediocre movie presented in a visually stunning way. There's such a thing as a middle ground - just because a movie wasn't phenomenal doesn't mean it's an atrocity. I agree with your points, I made a lot of them myself, but there's no need to be so black and white; a movie can be simply mediocre.

I'm being so harsh on it because you'd think with the amount of money spent on the film they'd pay somewhat attention to story. The story is the most important part of every movie- and in this movie it was poorly written and buried under all the special effects.

I wouldn't call it Mediocre, as most of the time people use the term "mediocre" to say a movie was bad - which I don't believe this film is. I thought it was fantastic, one of the best movies I've seen in the last few years. It might not be the most creative story (as it follows traditional movie format), but it does deliver it in a visually creative way. And that counts too.

Agreed on the money. For 280+ million dollars, it should have had a better story. But it's not like the one it has is bad. Not at all.

Though I do think you should unclench and just enjoy the movie for what it has instead of *****ing about what it doesn't have. Remember, not every movie has to redefine the way you perceive a good movie plot just to be good. Sometimes that just makes the movie worse. Sticking to formula isn't necessarily a bad thing.

This movie didn't stick to the formula. It took the formula and removed from what was already a simple idea. I have nothing against movies being generic, but if you're going to have a simple story- do it right.

Yeah, and it was a simple story done right. I know how awesome it is to rag on everything because it's mainstream and not Tim Burton, but give me a ****ing break. You're one of these guys who had his head set in stone going into the movie about hating it because it cost a lot of money to make.

You are totally right, because I had nothing better to do than to waste 35 dollars on IMAX tickets for me and my girlfriend. Should we see a different movie or should we spend near 50 dollars seeing a movie I've already decided I'm going to hate. Hmmm...

Your argument is broken. I hated the movie because it was a bad movie, not because I wanted to hate it.

james cameron was able to make the movie of his dreams but my film degree only qualifies me to be a musician's gofer. i am now officially butthurt.

Oh, I'm glad to see more people that have no idea what they're talking about jump into the argument. The usuals too. Very nice.

OFFICIALLY butthurt

You know, Jon, I was actually waiting to hear what you thought of the movie.

EDIT: And don't worry, SAJN, I know what you're going through. I used to have a big vendetta against The Lord of the Rings movies for no real reason other than the fact that I was a dick. There are just certain scenarios where you must admit that something is awesome. As bad as it sounds, there really are some points in the art world where your opinion is pretty much just wrong. If you were to say you think Abbey Road sucks, or The Godfather, or Thriller well you're just wrong. It doesn't suck. There is a certain barrier which can be broken by a film, song, album, etc... wherein it just becomes good and if you say it sucks you're just flat out being an *******.

Now you're entitled to say you don't really care for it... or you couldn't really get into it, using words like terrible to describe it is just ridiculous.

I'm giving this the official dj yoshi stamp of "your opinion is wrong."

I went on vacation the day it came out and just got back. I haven't had a chance to see it yet.

Well get a hold of me in #massassi when you see it. I'd love to discuss the scientific merits of the movie. There's some really crazy awesome stuff going on in it and I think you'd probably get a big kick out of it.

Oh man, I would love to hear about that too.
Well done universes are something I love, there's a reason I have wookieepedia bookmarked.

Tibby, I posted a link on page 2 to an article about the world of Avatar. It's really great stuff.

Well there's your problem. Most of us spent around 7$ to see it in regular theaters (or 12 if it was 3D. Sometimes 3D costs more).

I didn't see it in 3D since my GF gets headaches from it, but regardless it was still awesome. I left the theater loathing the fact that I had to return to reality, to real life. The world of Pandora was just that appealing.

Also, connecting the end of their hair to anything on the planet was just freaking brilliant.

You don't understand, xzero, the movie was terrible. You could never comprehend why sajn thinks it's terrible because he knows way more than anyone else on this board about movies. He has studied film in school!

Oh, wait, so have I. And the fact is, had I been charged fifty dollars to see Avatar I would consider that money well spent.