I suffer the consequences when I overdo. It doesn’t take much to put me down, and it takes a lot of time to get me back up. So I have to find entertainment to at least keep me sitting down while I pull what health I can together.
Since I haven’t had DSL very long, I’m a bit behind some folks in the art of movie-hunting. Catching up is a nice sit-down occupation, and entertaining in itself. Many episodes of Doctor Who (with Chinese subtitles) and other fun things later, I’m getting the hang of it.
Believe it or not, the first big one I went for was Avatar. The perfectly good reason — I wouldn’t get upset if I encountered problems acquiring it. Why practice on something I cared about?
Anyway, now I have seen the whole thing. Not in 3D, of course. I have never seen anything in 3D. My eyes don’t work together. I have lived my whole life without the illusion of 3D in the real world. Oh, I have depth perception, of a sort. It relies on focus, and it works very well under most circumstances. I’m a dead shot.
Heading back toward the subject: With one less illusion to veil the wizard, I see what is really there more easily than the average moviegoer. What I see pisses me off. All that technology wasted on a craptacular concatenation of clichés! Sure, there are a few nice moments, a couple of characters I could care about (if they could stop spitting out stale platitudes). None of it is enough to make up for the constant pain. Avatar, how do I despise thee? Let me count the ways.
The plot — well, it’s possible to do good things with the worst of plots, but that sure as hell wasn’t done with this Dancing With Wolves Meets Dune on the Forbidden Planet mess for the masses.
Noble Savages are bad enough; but nobsavs that yammer like sixth graders playing cowboys and indians, zomg. Not only are the aliens far too human, they are so dumbed-down-human as to be nauseating . What do you mean, we’re not in Kansas? I can see Topeka from here.
Reef lifeforms transplanted into forests. Come ooooon. It’s so obvious. There is nothing alien about the flora, it’s just scrambled habitat with a touch of exaggeration. Well, except for:
That godawful Tree of LED ropes! Cheeses freeakin’ tripes, did a manufacturer of non-essential lighting widgets underwrite the film?
Six legged animals vs. quadripedal humanoids. All sense and reason left behind. Besides, having two sets of front limbs is advantageous only to centaurs and dragons.
People doing the usual stupid things to get the plot along. Jake was supposedly a well-trained Marine. First he walks off to sniff the flowers in a deadly jungle, then he fails to find a place where he can cover his back when night is falling. Assbuttfucking stupid.
I can’t go on. Gah. Why couldn’t millions of dollars and thousands of hours, not to mention some pretty decent camera work, go into a good Dragonriders of Pern movie? Cripes, I’d pay to see that!