Growing up with the series, I've learned at a very young age to associate the Avatar as "the main character of Ultima, and an embodiment of the Virtues."

I had gone ahead and picked this one up.  One thing's for sure, it's a book that doesn't skimp on the minutia.  I mean, you can't possibly appreciate Avatar until you're made aware that the Bellicum Pennatum fern grows 4.5 to 5.5 meters in height and can spread up to 1.5 meters on average.  And that it contains an abundance of anthocyanin pigments, responsible for its distinguished blue hued leaves -- which makes for a perfectly matching ceremonial bonnet with the Na'vi's natural skin tone.

Some sample pages:

-An Activist Survival Guide 01
-An Activist Survival Guide 02
-An Activist Survival Guide 03
-An Activist Survival Guide 04
-An Activist Survival Guide 05
-An Activist Survival Guide 06
-An Activist Survival Guide 07
-An Activist Survival Guide 08
-An Activist Survival Guide 09
-An Activist Survival Guide 10
-An Activist Survival Guide 11

Saw this again today and while I enjoyed the movie the first time around, this time I enjoyed the 3D as well.  Going to a nice theater and getting good seats made all the difference.  I think I appreciated the story more the second time around, and found myself awestruck by the visuals even knowing what to expect.  Anyone with even the slightest interest in sci-fi, fantasy or adventure really must see this in the theater.  Amazing stuff.

Just saw this last week, and, well, once is probably enough.

I wanted to get the best experience so I went for that IMAX 3D dealy (a whopping 2200 yen) and I definitely was NOT disappointed visual-wise.
It's one hell of a ride that does not let off until the very end, and considering this movie is almost 3 hours long, that is an impressive feat,

In the end though, I felt really annoyed at how incredibly cookie-cutter the story is. You can seriously see the entire movie play out in your mind's eye within the first 10 minutes, and there isn't a single surprise along the way.
Characters vary from boring to annoying, the main character felt like a "Paint by numbers" drawing without the paint, Sigourney Weaver was running on automatic and the bad guy was such an incredibly bog-standard Military Dude with Contempt for Everything that it wasn't even particularly satisfying to hate him.
I guess the Na'vi were the best part of the movie, which is understandable, but even they weren't that interesting.

Some comments:

1. Would a LITTLE comic relief have hurt here and there?
2. Unobtainium is without a doubt the single dumbest name for a material EVER. Seriously, if this was a videogame, everyone would be facepalming, but because this is James Cameron it's suddenly okay.
3. Besides, what does it DO anyway? All we get to hear is that it's worth a shitload of money, and that's it. There's SO little background story.
4. I would have liked some basic explanation on the link between the Avatar and the Human Body. When the Avatar dies, what happens to the human? This was significantly explained in the Matrix, but not touched upon in Avatar, and I find it hard to care for some guy enhabiting a blue body when I know that his REAL body is safe in a machine somewhere. Once again, some BACKGROUND people!
5. I am beyond the age where I find movies that are purely about visual prowess and no originality whatsoever interesting enough to watch twice.
6. I kept thinking I was watching a videogame (albeit an insanely beautiful one), that whole Life Tree and Spirit Energy stuff reminded me of FFVII, and even the monster design looks like it belongs in an average JRPG.

So yeah, a bit too overhyped methinks.

You were expecting otherwise? Most Hollywood films are like that, and of course I wouldn't expect anything less from James "Special Effects Porn" Cameron.

http://www.badgerinternet.com/~bobkat/waterstone.html

I think it's pretty sad, but hey, it makes lots of money so expect more special effects with little/no story for many years. Of course, every now and then a movie does surprise you (Pans Labyrinth), but those tend to be pretty rare. Fortunately, there are lots of classic movies to catch-up on, and quite a few good indie films released

cheers,

-avatar!

Simul-post with Amazingu.

Regarding your points 2-4, well the movie was two and a half hours and close to feeling overly long without that extra exposition.  And my perspective towards the movie is more that of a fantasy adventure in the vein of Star Wars than a sci-fi film.  How does The Force work and what's so bad politically about The Empire anyway, and where did this Rebellion come from?  The original movies didn't bother to elaborate and it didn't matter, and when the later ones did try it didn't come across very well.  I look at it the same way with Avatar.

Fair enough.  But even if a movie doesn't really bring something new to the table, if it does what it does better than everybody else (in the case of Avatar, portraying a fantasy world) then it's a good movie in my book.

Agreed about the bad guy though, could have done with a few less seconds of his ugly mug in the finale.

That's funny because they showed a 3D preview of Final Fantasy XIII right before the movie, which made for a good comparison. Certainly you could think of dozens of sources of inspiration for the elements in Avatar (and for the "life tree and spirit energy stuff", plenty from before FFVII) but I would like to know of any movies or video games that tell a similar story in a respectable manner with anything even remotely near the same visual and artistic splendor, because I'd love to see them.   Unoriginal and predictable the story may be, but I consider the storytelling far above the level of your average JRPG. The FFXIII preview looked pretty in 3D but I'd watch Avatar five times over before touching that silliness.

Speaking of the monster design and having played Panzer Dragoon Zwei recently, the big daddy dragon in Avatar reminded me of one of the morphs in that game.  The closest we'll ever get to a PD movie I suppose.

By "better than everybody else" you mean what exactly?
In terms of portraying a fantasy world, I think it's not nearly as good as say Lord of the Rings, the Princess Bride, The Neverending Story, and I could go on... although yes, the special effects are more grandiose than most movies, but the fantasy world in any of the films I mentioned was "better" (in my opinion)! Of course, I tend to hate most huge Hollywood special-effects extravaganzas, so yeah I'm biased...

cheers,

-avatar!

Ah, at last, a kindred spirit. XD I thought for sure I was the only one who thought FFXIII looked rather "bleh."

Still haven't seen Avatar in IMAX yet, but I'm working out a plan to trek up to Phoenix sometime soon. Maybe next week? I really liked Avatar though. Visually it didn't disappoint and was easily the most impressive film I've ever seen. The story was by the book and that's what I expected. I don't view terms such as simple, cliche, or unoriginal as being necessarily bad. They can be, but not everything has to be new to be entertaining and at the end of the day that's what movies are about: being entertained.

Avatar kept my focus for three hours and I enjoyed every minute of it. That's more than I can say for some other films I've seen (coughIngloriousBastardscough). I'm looking forward to seeing it in IMAX and I'll definitely buy it once it's out on DVD too. I've never been into Blu-ray (way overrated), but I suspect this film might push me closer to converting. It was such a beautiful film and I'd like to bring as much of that beauty home as I possibly can.

On a side note: you aren't alone, Avatar! My one complaint with the film was "unobtainium." Yes, I know scientists aren't always the most creative people and they have come up with some really dumb names over the years... but this is a movie! Please, don't give us lame-ass names like unobtainium. I was so glad they didn't use the name much as it physically hurt me every time they said it. >.<;

It's ridiculous how fake the mushrooms look, like they came from a videogame official guidebook with the in-game polygon models as illustrations.

Well, having progressed a fair bit into FFXIII now, I can say that, comparing it to Avatar, the characters are equally annoying (well perhaps slightly more annoying in FF), but at least FFXIII has a MUCH more original concept than Avatar. Not that I would imply JRPG storytelling is the be-all-end-all of storytelling, but Avatar is really the most unimaginative, trite, cookie-cutter story I've seen in a long time.
Granted, the same can be said of most JRPGs, but I would not consider Avatar "far above" JRPGs at all.
In fact most JRPGs I've played recently have at least had SOME original twists along the way.

Like I said, FFXIII at least features a world that is far more original than Avatar's, even if it is not as interesting visually.

I always thought about that myself: If the Na'vi knew what they were dealing with, why did they choose to deal with them?

...

Other than that, like what everyone else has said, the very idea of the story has been done before - high technology civilization declares war on a less developed civilization, and one guy tries to assimilate with the civilization that is facing impending doom, and fight together with them on their behalf.

Only real difference is, the underdog wins in the end.

...

The biolumiscent plants reminded me a lot of Beyond Good & Evil - that mine shaft in the beginning of the game; anything that reminds me of Beyond Good & Evil kicks ass.

Rather enjoyed it; don't really have anything to complain about.

Dude, that is EXACTLY the way this kind of story ALWAYS ends.
Look at any other movie/game where a huge empire/military organisation is overthrown by 3 people with swords and some kind of furry creature.

The Underdog ALWAYS wins.
That's what makes it fiction.

Reading up on the Activist Survival Guide makes things a bit clearer:

"The avatar project was originally intended to create mine workers who did not need environmental protection systems and could eat Pandorian foodstuffs, but the cost of the mental link system remained too high for the numbers needed.  Avatars are now used only for field work and, when the opportunity arises, to interact with the Na'vi and study them.  It was hoped that the avatars could act as unofficial ambassadors, but Na'vi have for the most part viewed these hybrid creatures with a mix of contempt and mistrust." 

Really?  I thought there was just enough in the film.  Jake trash talking the hammerhead beast was a bit much, but Neytira's "stupid and ignorant like a child" line, Jake and Grace's initial banter with one another, Jake's "uh huh" response to Neytiri's explanation of the Eyra seeds as they surround him, the Jar Head Clan reference, and Grace's "I need to take some samples" toward the end all managed to get laughs at the showings I attended.  Plus, just watching Jake's awkwardness as he makes his transition to Na'vihood is an amusing endeavor.

-An Activist Survival Guide 07, the bottom left footnote in particular.

Beyond that, though, does it really matter what it does?  With a name like "unobtainium", I don't think the writers meant for it to be anything more than a plot device.  It was readily explained at the beginning that Earth is in an economic crisis; to know anything more other than it's worth a lot of money and that the humans want it would be redundant.

Check out the unobtanium wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobtanium

  After I watched the movie, I made the same complaint during the holidays and my Uncle told me it's an old term, so that prompted me to look it up. Definitely not original to Avatar.

  I also did not like the fact that the use of unobtanium was not explained. After finding out that it's superconducting, I can understand why we'd be willing to thoroughly upset the life on another planet. In order to normally make use of that property, we typically use liquid helium to bring temperatures down to a few degrees above absolute zero, which is very expensive. And dangerous. And time consuming if there is a problem, because workers have to wait for the areas to warm up. (Superconductors are materials that have no electrical resistance. None have been discovered that operate anywhere near room temperature. They also expel magnetic fields, which allows objects to 'float', whether they are paper clips, trains, or mountains.)

I was under the assumption that everyone already knew of the term -- which is why I'm surprised folks are making a stink over its use here.  Figured everyone was in on the intended joke. 

Says Wiki:

"Unobtainium can also refer to any rare but desirable material used to motivate a conflict over its possession, making it a MacGuffin. Like gold, the material may also have technical uses, but the particular use or properties of the material are not important to the plot."

Right.  But again, trying to fit that into the narrative might have proven redundant.  It's an interesting factoid, certainly, and even if the writers WANTED to integrate it into the film, I'm sure the studio heads would give it the axe for pacing reasons.

So that explains the floating mountains on Pandora, and why their radars didn't work amongst said floating mountains: Because they were full of Unobtanium?

Pretty much: An Activist Survival Guide 12

Saw this last week.  Basically, I thought it was entertaining, but nothing more.  It's just your average Hollywood blockbuster with 3D tacked on.  Next.

Saw it today. I LOVED it. It's the first movie in 3D I've seen and I was completely blown away. For some reason, it was easier than usual to overlook the cliches and occasional clunky dialogue. I cared about these characters.

Horner's score, contextually.  What say you? 

After some reflection, Avatar merely offers an alternative for people that refuse to read science fiction novels. I've been exposed to imagery like that seen in Avatar for many years, due to reading actual books. This explains why Avatar reminded me of a novel I had read more than anything else. It takes hundreds of millions of dollars to approximate human imagination, so I can only call it an 'alternative' and definitely not a 'shortcut'. If you liked Avatar, then you should make sure to read Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern - http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?THDRGNRDRS0000

It did everything it was supposed to. The only irritant was the use of the wailing woman during a moment of great sadness, which has become a film music cliche.

As far as unreleased music goes (and there was plenty), I noticed some interesting stuff during some of the action scenes (the Jake chase near the beginning and the second half of the final battle) but it's hard to tell because the sound effects were so loud.

Saw it with the wife yesterday and loved it as well.  3D is the way to go.

Word to the wise: do not drink a large Diet Coke within the first 30 minutes of the movie.  I had to piss so bad that the last hour was a mental struggle between leaving the movie to relieve my bladder or stick it through and see the entire movie.  (the movie won )

Finally saw this in IMAX 3D tonight.  Loved every second of it.  True the story's been done before, but the way it was done with the visuals and the 3D-ness of it blew me away. 

I do have the same complaint about the Unobtanium that everyone else here is talking about tho.

It looks like Avatar only needs to earn another $700,000,000 to clinch #1:

http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/world/

What's funny to me is that Cameron can't possibly lose. He already has the #1 position.

http://movies.yahoo.com/news/movies.ap. … erpiece-ap

Something becomes so exposed, published, pushed-to-the-forefront, and as visible as Avatar is, and all of sudden, everyone has a friggin' problem with it...no matter what it is...

I wouldn't believe anything they said in the first place. Good thing I'm not in Ireland, eh?

Additionally for them to come out and say that, now I'm sure people are going to want to see it and see why it's not a masterpiece. Brilliant! Masterpiece is a relative term to begin with my friends.

It's looking like the U.S. home release of Avatar is set for April 22, 2010.  Earth Day.  Cute.

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7017860971

Despite being the first of a planned double-dip, this "bare bones" version will undoubtedly sell like gangbusters.  If there's any film that's going to push Blu-ray's popularity, this will be it.