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THAT WAS WICKED AWESOME!!!
...ok, got that out of my system. Couple of points:
1) This is 3-D come of age. Other than a few interior shots and one chase scene toward the beginning of the movie (where the effect may have been deliberate) my eyes did not feel like the focal lengths were shooting back and forth like a yo-yo. Images didn't protrude from the screen, instead, you got to look _into _ the screen Big difference.
2) The Na'vi were also AWESOME and I wish there were more. It's deeply amusing to me that one of my first thoughts after they came on screen was "Hey, we know have the technology to bring Atevi to life!" I'm really not sure Cherryh's 'Foreigner' series would _make_ could cinema, but at least the Atevi would look realistic (and be derided as tweaked Na'vi rip-offs by those not in the know).
3) Pandora (the planet)was also AWESOME. Vaguely reminiscent of some of Duane Barlowe's work...but that could just be convergence. The ecology was the only thing that kept nagging at me though: all life on Pandora is very deliberately shown as hexapodal...except the Na'vi, who are pretty definite tetrapods...and yet there's that [SPOILER] which definitely indicates a shared heritage. *shrug* I was probably the only person in the theater bothered by bauplan dissonance, though.
4) And finally, I have to agree with lots of other people on the web: the story is prosaic...and possibly a little hackneyed, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's a plain story, plainly told, which leaves the brain lots of room for "ooh, shiny" rather than puzzling out that last plot twist. And I think Howard Taylor (of Schlock Mercenary) said it best when he titled his review the following:( Read more... )
...ok, got that out of my system. Couple of points:
1) This is 3-D come of age. Other than a few interior shots and one chase scene toward the beginning of the movie (where the effect may have been deliberate) my eyes did not feel like the focal lengths were shooting back and forth like a yo-yo. Images didn't protrude from the screen, instead, you got to look _into _ the screen Big difference.
2) The Na'vi were also AWESOME and I wish there were more. It's deeply amusing to me that one of my first thoughts after they came on screen was "Hey, we know have the technology to bring Atevi to life!" I'm really not sure Cherryh's 'Foreigner' series would _make_ could cinema, but at least the Atevi would look realistic (and be derided as tweaked Na'vi rip-offs by those not in the know).
3) Pandora (the planet)was also AWESOME. Vaguely reminiscent of some of Duane Barlowe's work...but that could just be convergence. The ecology was the only thing that kept nagging at me though: all life on Pandora is very deliberately shown as hexapodal...except the Na'vi, who are pretty definite tetrapods...and yet there's that [SPOILER] which definitely indicates a shared heritage. *shrug* I was probably the only person in the theater bothered by bauplan dissonance, though.
4) And finally, I have to agree with lots of other people on the web: the story is prosaic...and possibly a little hackneyed, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's a plain story, plainly told, which leaves the brain lots of room for "ooh, shiny" rather than puzzling out that last plot twist. And I think Howard Taylor (of Schlock Mercenary) said it best when he titled his review the following:( Read more... )
