Avatar: Most Awesome Movie Ever
My 2 cents worth December 18th, 2009
So James Cameron’s long awaited film Avatar finally hit my local cinemas yesterday and in my opinion, it lives up to all the hype that had been buzzing around long before the movie was released. For so many reasons.
For those who don’t know what Avatar is, I highly suggest you go wiki it and read up on it. It’s definitely one for the books.
So why is it so awesome? First and foremost is probably the world of Pandora itself.
After watching the movie, it struck me that Avatar in 2009 is similar to what Star Wars was to 1977, except on a much smaller scale. Both universes were the brainchilds of 2 indviduals, James Cameron and George Lucas respectively of course. However, Avatar’s new universe is on a much smaller scale than Star Wars, because while Star Wars literally creates an entire universe, Avatar only depicts a single fictional planet. However, what this movie lacks in breadth, it more than makes up for in it’s depth.
In Star Wars, the universe isn’t very closely explored. Much of what the world is like is left to the audience’s imagination (hence the Extended Universe of books/comics/games/etc.). On the other hand, the world of Pandora is completely fleshed out, every single detail is explored and there are so many little touches that makes Pandora feel like a real place. It’s amazing how much painstaking work the graphics artists had to go through to create each and every frame of the movie, because there’s so much detail in each and every frame of the movie that I kept wishing I could pause the movie in between just to admire a particular scene. Everything from the colours of the jungle, to the creatures to the flora all around is just stunning to look at. Words really can’t describe the beauty of the world of Pandora and you really have to see it to understand the feeling that anyone who watches this movie will get.
Now the 3D technology is just amazing. It’s partly due to the way each frame is designed I guess, because everything just pops in 3D. There’re ambient particles in certain scenes that truly do seem to be floating around right in front of your face, and every time there’s a rear shot of one of the Na’vi, I felt like tugging at their tails. I never thought it’d be possible to create a movie that uses 3D technology that isn’t in the style of a Pixar film, but Cameron really managed to pull it off spectacularly.
Is this the greatest movie ever made? Not really. To me there are pacing issues and the story isn’t that great. The third act of the movie seemed to drag on for ages and I kept wanting the plot to just move along. Yet, even when it was getting slow, I was still in awe the entire time I was watching the screen. The story on the other hand is pretty ‘meh’.
Go see this movie while you have the chance to. Go watch it in the cinemas because that’s the only way to experience it properly, and watch it in 3D. You won’t regret it this one time.
Tags: avatar, james cameron, pandora
So I’ve just finished watching an entire cartoon series…
Random Musings August 1st, 2009
It’s been long since I’ve updated here, I kinda lost the mood to write/blog for quite some time. Hope it doesn’t stay that way though.
Of course, the thing that’s been taking up most of my time over the past week or so has been Avatar: The Last Airbender. I just finished plowing through all 3 seasons which amounts to about 60 episodes. In retrospect, it’s pretty amazing that I actually watched the ENTIRE series in the first place, considering how I almost never finish watching ANY TV series in the first place, let alone a cartoon show.
I started watching Avatar after the show was repeatedly recommended by the hosts of the Totally Rad Show, and I thought I’d give it a shot. I heard about the show in the past, but paid little attention to it since it was a cartoon. That was until Dan made a really bold statement: “It’s as good as Star Wars”. I could hardly ignore it after hearing that.
Now, here I am, 60 episodes later, thinking that it isn’t exactly as good as Star Wars. In fact, I desperately wished this show wasn’t a cartoon aimed at children, but a more adult series. Because in a show where the main premise is that there are four nations at war, all of which have special powers to control the elements of fire, water, earth and air which they use to fight each other, the show is a lot less satisfying when not a SINGLE person in the entire series actually explicitly dies. I mean for crying out loud, there’s a fight scene in almost every single episode, yet no one ever dies. It just feels really weird to me…
Of course, a movie based on the show is in the works, due for release next year. But seriously, when you have a show that draws most of it’s inspiration from ancient Chinese culture, why in the world did the director (M. Night Shyamalan) cast every single role to a white kid? Even the main character, who’s a bald, Chinese monk, is played by a white kid? Seriously?
Besides that, from what I’ve seen thus far, The Last Airbender isn’t exactly shaping up to be a blockbuster movie. All the pictures I’ve seen of the filming thus far look really bad. Everything just doesn’t look and feel the way it’s supposed to be. Of course, all the footage that’s been released thus far has merely been a teaser trailer, and things could change a lot in a year of production, but I’m pretty nervous as to how the movie is going to turn out.
That being said, the TV series is probably one of the greatest stories ever told. The characters are all really well thought out and developed, and I really felt attached to every single one of them. The twists in the story are pretty cool and unexpected, and you’re always wondering what’s going to happen next. By the time you reach the third season, it’s like reading the last 200 pages of a Harry Potter book, you just don’t want to stop.
Tags: avatar, nickelodeon
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