Cat-People Scratch Fever

Alternate Title: Blue-ty Call

Why send in all the blue-cat hybrid clones, mech warriors, and hover tanks and such when you could just hire Tony Stark to fly in and repulsor ray the shit out of the Navi and secure Pandora’s rich mineral deposits for the good ol’ US of Earth (while simultaneously securing a little alien strange for himself)? Seems like a waste of resources and a waste of an opportunity to pick up some cool offworld venereal diseases.

I am at a fanboy crossroads. I really can’t decide if I want to go through all the effort of getting a baby sitter this weekend just so I can see Jame’s Cameron’s 3 hour, 3D eye-splode Avatar, or if I just want to stay home and watch the Iron Man 2 trailer over and over and over and over and over. Both prospects are equally exciting to me.

I probably will see Avatar this weekend (and also do the Iron Man 2 thing), but since I havn’t yet feel free to post your thoughts/judgments in the comments. Future of film making or forgettable fluorescent feline frenzy?

SHIPPING UPDATE!!!
If you ordered an Edward shirt on Dec 2nd, 3rd or 4th we are doing everything possible to get your shirt to you by 12/24. Some of them probably won’t make it in time. We’re doing our best.

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29 Comments

  1. @Nathan – it's in ALL those versions. I saw it in RealD, and it rocked. Hard. Would like to see the IMAX one as well. I was told on another email list from someone who works in the theater biz that they had to do a lot of special calibrations to get the 3D to be this good, and if your viewing looks out of sync or hard to follow at all (like a lot of 3D is), to just get a refund and go elsewhere. Ours was excellent — took about 15-20 minutes for my eyes to adjust entirely, but after that, it was wonderful and very realistic.

    The movie itself is "Dances With Na'vi", but the world he created is just amazing and I didn't want to leave. And as I've seen elsewhere, they should just sign the "Dragonriders of Pern" production rights over to Cameron NOW. The flying sequences were perfect and seemed to pull from some of the Pern descriptions of dragon/rider interactions and behavior.

    • Ach, not Pern! I mean, I understand that James Cameron can direct visuals and action scenes and effects but from all the reviews I've read the plot/dialogue of this movie was awful and the characterizations terribly broad (from actors that should have been able to do better).

      Basically, I don't want anybody to make a movie of Pern because I love it too much. *hides*

  2. Seen it twice at this point. It was better the second time. James Cameron can direct the HELL out of an action scene, and the movie's story and pacing are pretty damn good as well. You really wanted the story to continue, even after three hours.

  3. The plot is a standard "going native" plot with cat-Smurfs, ending with an Ewok battle, as many have commented. Where this film shines is that it has the photorealism of District 9, but in 3D, and with a more mature subject than G-Force. The IMAX version is amazing.

    I would have already seen it a second time, except all the obvious digs at Republicans bug me; not because they make me mad or convert me from being a Republican, but just the feeling I get that James Cameron is saying this film isn't for me. I should be able to ignore them the second time through.

    On second though, maybe I should just see G-Force again.

      • yeah I dont get that either. I mean there is an environmental message ("they killed their mother") but to say that all republicans are anti-environment seems to be playing right into a negative stereotype of republicans. I dont mean to be disrespectful to @bluenight but I think you saw what you wanted to see. The message of the movie was against those that conquer indigenous peoples with brute force and take what they want. If you take that as a dig against republicans, well…

    • Yeah, what does Cameron have against The Sultan of Oman? I mean, he doesn't come right out and say it, but you can just tell from the subtle digs that he really doesn't like the guy. For that matter, what is with James Cameron's pro Carthage bias?

  4. Haha nice, I don't know why but it reminded me of that line from Army Of Darkness
    "Oh that's just what we call pillow talk, baby, that's all."

    Saw the movie yesterday and all I can say is WOW what a spectacle. The weak story and the occasional cringe worthy dialog didn't bother me at all. The only thing I thought was weird was the random voice-overs, they seemed out of place and unneeded.

  5. Strike One: It's a six hour drive to an Imax theatre here.

    Strike Two: The moment I saw the aliens, I lost *all* interest. There's things that press my geek buttons, but obviously Cameron discovered the Opposite Of Geek for me.

    Strike Three: The prospect of a CGI Jungle makes me think of Jack Black huffing through King Kong, and Shia LeDoufus swinging through the trees in that Indiana Jones film.

    Strike Four: I own an Xbox360. I am Space Marined Out.

    On the plus side:

    – Um… Sigourney Weaver?

    – The trailers remind me of this, which was as trippy as hell:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5Wnd9OES8Y

      • Technically, they're Space Mercenaries. The hero just happens to be an ex-Marine (paraplegia gets you a super-honorable discharge). The villain acts like he's still in the Corps.

        Also, the CG jungle is totally convincing.

    • Until you have seen Colonel Quaritch in action you have not seen The Space Marine.

      RDA and Cameron should clone that guy for the inevitable sequels.

  6. Saw it in IMAX3D yesterday and it was amazing. It's worth a gander. I don't see anyone enjoying it outside of a 3D format though.

  7. I saw the movie opening night in IMAX 3d with a bunch of the lads from work. What I'll say has probably already been said, but yes, it was a kick-ass movie.

    Yes, the overall story/plot has been done before. I've been calling the movie Disney's Pocahontas In Space!, and I'm not the only one ( http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Recycl… ). There were quite a few places where the dialog was just plain cheesy, particularly the Braveheart-esque "rousing the natives" speech, and I generally had trouble enjoying Jake Sully when he was in "Avatar mode". Perhaps something was lost in the CGI translation, I dunno, but something about his character in particular just put me off.

    But despite all that, I loved the movie. It was amazingly complex visually, but the movie flowed well from scene to scene; I never had one of those "hey, they forgot about that little detail" or "WTF are they talking about?" moments that I frequently have in action flicks that just try too hard. Colonel Quaritch, the main antagonist, was just plain bad-ass in a way that has to be seen to be truly believed. And so what if the story has already been told? So was Star Wars. So was Hamlet. *Every* story has already been told. It's not whether or not it's derivative that matters; it's how you present the story that matters. It's the details.

    So yeah, awesome flick. If I ever write some best-selling sci-fi or fantasy novel, I definitely want James Cameron directing it. The man can make any story just come alive.

    • It's not just the presentation that matters, it's the overall treatment. And here the treatment is uninspiring, especially for a topic like culture clash/colonization that's so much more complex than the movie tries to make it seem.

      That being said, Colonel Custard…erm, Quaritch…was awesome, so awesome that I found myself siding with him more than with the main protagonist. And the 3D was good. We sat in the second row at 3D IMAX, and during the cockpit scenes, the illusion was nearly perfect.

  8. Would go and see this, but ALL 3D projection techniques I've found so far give me EPIC EPIC migranes, but then most cinema does that anyway, excluding the 2D DLP stuff.

  9. It's always a little disappointing to finish a comic's archives, but it's done. Now, when I come and see you in Austin or wherever I can do more than buy a button and make awkward conversation.

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