Arguments against AVATAR and James Cameron

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Paul Frommer's
Language Workbook

[Nìwotxkrr Tìyawn]

We've all had to deal with haters and their arguments no matter how ridiculous. So I figure why not start a thread to help people combat trolls and haters.

First just write down the claim (or claims) you've heard from people and then give a good response on how to combat it and give any possible links to documents or sites that help prove your statement.

(note: outright insulting people who argue against avatar just makes you and the rest of us look less intelligent.)

1. Avatar has no originality
   -only at a basic level can you claim that avatar's plot has no originality (the whole "man from a different culture goes indigenous" thing), but on many other things such as setting, details about Na'vi culture, and the actual scriptment there's a ton of originality.

Links:
http://eanaeltu.learnnavi.org/dicts/NaviPlainDictionary.pdf
www.pandorapedia.com
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/14294813/Avatar-Scriptment-by--James-Cameron or http://avatarthemovieforum.com/files/avatarscriptment.pdf

Pandora Discovered

2. James Cameron doesn't really care for the environment, he's just greedy.
   -Cameron was never sure how much Avatar was going to make BECAUSE of the heavy eco message and how long people would be subject to it (and the 3-d) when watching the movie.
   -He went and helped with the planting of 1 million trees
   -He's been making environmental films all of his life
   -He went out of his way to go to the Canadian tar sands to be able to get facts straightened

needs confirmation: the way the oil spill was stopped was essentially what Cameron suggested 2 months earlier

Links:
http://www.tonic.com/article/james-cameron-plants-first-one-million-trees/
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-03-01-cameron-im-the-greenest-director-of-all-time/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-tarbotton/james-cameron-goes-to-the_b_747551.html
http://motherjones.com/environment/2010/10/james-cameron-avatar-tar-sands
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/world/americas/11brazil.html

[überdoodlet]

Well, many of my friends said, when I asked them how they liked AVATAR, "It was like Pocahontas in space.", or "I was just a bunch of blue people running around shooting arrows.".

I say, if that is all you got out AVATAR, I feel bad for you. There was a great story that you missed.

You have to look beyond the visual and try to realize what the characters were feeling, what the story as a whole, and why everything happened.

Even though the movie was coming up on 3 hours long, nothing was random. Everything was useful, and had a purpose.

['Oma Tirea]

+Karma for this, ma Nìwotxkrr Tìyawn

If anyone can find anything else, seykxel sì nitram ngaru nìteng.

[wm.annis]

1. Avatar has no originality

My answer to that is actually, "so?"

Certain stories have been told for so long, are so primal, that if we could teach a baboon to speak it would understand them perfectly.  It's how you tell the story that matters.  I mean, why aren't people sick of love songs yet?

[Nìwotxkrr Tìyawn]

I've come up with two more and I would have never thought I would spend this much time on these. (I guess I subconsciously really hate...haters oh god! I'm one of them!) As always, feel free to make your own contributions. They don't have to be nearly this big, any size is fine as long as it's thought out and you can always just comment on any existing posts if you have something to add.

3. Anyone who likes AVATAR is and idiot or hasn't watched any other movies.

REVIEWS:

IMDB: 8.3/10 Users: (265,282 votes) 2,642 Reviews; Critics: 472 Reviews

ROTTEN TOMATOES: 83% All Critics - 95% Top Critics - 92% Audience

METACRITIC: 84 out of 100 Metascore (Universal acclaim based on 35 critics) - User Score 7.8 (based on 1737 reviews)

BOX OFFICE MOJO:
Grade Breakdown
As: 5,222    76.1%
Bs: 822    12.0%
Cs: 220    3.2%
Ds: 89    1.3%
Fs: 513    7.5%

Average: B+ (6866 votes)

AWARDS

Total: 128 Nominations w/ 65 Wins

Avatar is an American epic  science fiction film written and directed by James Cameron that was released in 2009. The film was premiered by 20th Century Fox in London, England on December 10, and was released in the United States and Canada on December 18, grossing $27 million on its opening day and $77 million during its opening weekend in 3,461 theaters, ranking number one at the box office.[1]  Avatar was well received and accumulated an approval rating of 83% on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.[2]  The film went on the become the highest-grossing film of all-time worldwide[3]  and the first film to gross more than $2 billion.[4]

Avatar was nominated for nine Academy Awards, winning Art Direction, Cinematography, and Visual Effects at the 82nd Academy Awards.[5] The film garnered four nominations at the 67th Golden Globe Awards ceremony, and received two awards for Best Film – Drama and Best Director.[6] Avatar was nominated for eight British Academy Film Awards, winning Best Production Design and Best Special Visual Effects. The film's achievement in visual effects were praised by the Visual Effects Society, who honored it with six accolades during their annual awards ceremony. Avatar was also nominated for the Directors Guild of America Awards, the Producers Guild of America Awards, and the Writers Guild of America Awards. The film was nominated for ten Saturn Awards and it went on to win all ten at the 36th Saturn Awards ceremony. Zoe Saldana's win for the Saturn Award for Best Actress marked a rare occurrence for an all-CG character.[7]

Avatar received recognition from numerous North American critics' associations. The film garnered nine nominations for the Critics' Choice Awards of the Broadcast Film Critics Association where it won Best Action Film and several technical categories.[8] The Austin Film Critics Association and the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association placed the film on their lists of the year's top ten films.[9][10] Phoenix Film Critics Society honored the film with Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Production Design and Best Visual Effect awards and also included it on its top ten films of the year list.[11] It won two of the St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association awards for Best Visual Effects and Most Original, Innovative or Creative Film,[12] and the New York Film Critics Online honored the film with its Best Picture award.[13]

In December 2009, the American Film Institute recognized the film and Cameron's advances in CGI effects with their yearly "AFI Moments of Significance" award claiming it "will have profound effects on the future of the art form".[14] In early 2010, Time ranked Avatar number 10 in their list of "Best Movies of the Decade".[15] In January 2010, it was announced that the Southern Sky Column, a 3,544-foot (1,080 m) quartz-sandstone mountain in the Zhangjiajie National Forest Park in Zhangjiajie, Hunan, China, had been renamed "Avatar Hallelujah Mountain" (阿凡达-哈利路亚山) by the city government in honor of the film.[16] According to park officials, photographs from the park became a source of inspiration for the floating Hallelujah Mountains seen in Avatar.

Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accolades_received_by_Avatar for the full list.

Conclusion: if this many people were stupid, we'd still be in the dark ages
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4. The Re release sucked and was a total flop

RERELEASE:

AVATAR: Special Edition: $10,524,151
LOTR: The Two Towers (re-issue): $1,996,877
LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring (re-issue): $1,412,056

AVATAR: Special Edition made more than twice as much as both LOTR re-issues combined. (Note: nobody considered them flops AFAIK)

BOX OFFICE MOJO:
Grade Breakdown
As:    261    74.4%
Bs:    26    7.4%
Cs:    7    2.0%
Ds:    10    2.8%
Fs:    47    13.4%

Average: B (351 votes)
(Note: This grade is slightly lower than the original; this may be due to the fact the vote count is pretty low, so it should probably be considered a B- to B+ range rather than a straight B)

Conclusion: Part A: The Special Edition was no failure just because it didn't live up to everyone's expectations, it brought in a pretty decent chunk of change for coming out only a few months after the original. Part B: The movie was received just as much as or slightly less than the original which points towards it not sucking.

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

And if that doesn't work, you can always break out the big guns.

NO U.

 

[Maria TunVrrtep]

To anyone who says the story isn't original, I say, "What story is original?  Seriously there are a finite number of stories that people want to watch in the movies.  Star Wars was just a western in space.  So was the original Star Trek series.  It's not the originality of the story that draws us to it, it's the way the story is told that makes a movie worth going to see."

To anyone who tries to say that big budget, heavy special effects movies, I say, "Well the movie studios know what side their bread is buttered on.  The younger generation is interested in the effects.  And to be honest so am I.  I love seeing the difference between the special effects today and what they were when Star Wars was first released.  That was state of the art back then, and look how far we've come technologically.  I think it's amazing.  The problem I have with some special effects movies is that they have no storyline.  they rely too much on special effects.  Avatar is not like that.  It has a wonderful storyline that shows us that people can care for the earth."

And finally, to anyone who wants to try to say that Avatar promotes Paganism in our society, I will say (because I haven't actually had anyone try this one on me yet), "Avatar is trying to promote caring for the earth.  Yes there are pagan elements, but they are truly more environmentalist elements than pagan.  The pagan elements in the movie show a loving Deity who cares for Her people, animals and planet.  How can that be bad or evil?  All it does is show that perhaps the people in the movie are nicer and more caring for each other than we humans are."

ta TunVrrtep

[überdoodlet]

I agree. People that criticize AVATAR don't look deeper than just what is put in front of them.

[Teylar Ta Palulukankelku]

Just one question...

Spoiler

Does anyone feel like some film critics wanted to hate Avatar from the beginning, as in even before they saw the movie? Something feels awfully cliché here: any ambitious movie/director always get stabbed in the back.

[Nìwotxkrr Tìyawn]

Some people just love to hate on popular things so they can "prove they're not a mindless sheep" or something like that. If they can't find anything wrong they try to up play weaker aspects of something or try to make something wrong. Like that TMZ set-up bullcrap awhile back.

http://www.tmz.com/2009/12/25/james-cameron-in-major-a-hole-dispute/

A lone fan waiting with a poster and marker at the airport somehow knowing when Cameron is leaving and a TMZ guy just so happens to be standing right next to him the whole time? Not exactly rocket science to put 2 and 2 together. My bet is that he saw right through it.

Bottom line; haters 'gon hate, and try to get everyone else to hate too.

[archaic]

Over heard some conversation a while back .....

" ..... so I like the most popular film ever made. That makes me the freakish minority dose it? ..... "

[ExLibrisMortis]

Check it out,  as ganster as this statement may sound, hater gonna hate. No matter what. Either for bandwagoning hate or plain hate, but they are always gonna hate. They will never delve into the topic nor can you reason with them, plain and simple. It more of an enjoyment for them to be trolling you all the day long. Just, don't feed the trolls.

[überdoodlet]

Just one question...

Spoiler

Does anyone feel like some film critics wanted to hate Avatar from the beginning, as in even before they saw the movie? Something feels awfully cliché here: any amitious movie/director always get stabbed in the back.

Mhmm. Almost like, if any HUGE movie comes out, critics look for every flaw or twisted opinion instead of looking for good.

[Teylar Ta Palulukankelku]

Some people just love to hate on popular things so they can "prove they're not a mindless sheep" or something like that. If they can't find anything wrong they try to up play weaker aspects of something or try to make something wrong.

Mhmm. Almost like, if any HUGE movie comes out, critics look for every flaw or twisted opinion instead of looking for good.

Maybe Nìwotxtrr Tìyawn's (Sorry if i misspelled  .) statement applies here, too. Perhaps some film critics also have this ``I must hate all things that are popular so i can prove that i'm independent and not some mainstream idiot.´´-mentality. Personally, i think it's idioticly stupid and i feel bad for those who think this way and perhaps force themselves to hate things they wouldn't have hated otherwise instead of looking into their hearts and find what they really like.

Bottom line: Don't focus on hating most things, focus on loving something.

[Nyx]

Over heard some conversation a while back .....

" ..... so I like the most popular film ever made. That makes me the freakish minority dose it? ..... "

Haha, thank you for that one

Personally, I've given up on critics, I don't even listen to them. But if it happens that I do, my rule of thumb is that if a movie gets good reviews it's not worth watching and if they're bashing it, it's probably a really good one.

My friends are a different story... with them I find something "stupid" they're into and watch them figure out a reason to how that's not the same.