Egnaro TV

We joined the masses and went to check out a screening of Avatar tonight. I think because of the hype machine that's been working overtime for this film I feel compelled to throw my thoughts into the noise around this.

Overall it's a decent movie and I suppose that's the problem. My expectations have been set so high that it truly needed to be the greatest film ever made to live up to to it's own self-imposed standard. Sadly it fell short in many areas.

First the tech stuff. I got to see some preview scenes from Avatar in the Nokia Live Theater in LA while I was attending Adobe MAX. It's difficult to visually compare that screening to what I saw at the Scotiabank Theatre. Clearly our local movie houses are lacking in the projection technology department. Scenes on the surface of Pandora were flat, high in contrast, low in saturation and overall too dark. The sense of life and subtle movement I felt in LA didn't come through in a more typical theatre and this is a true shame. 

Next let's all pitch in and buy James Cameron a basic handbook on editing. Two hours and forty minutes was about sixty minutes too much to tell this story. Either cut out all the filler visual fluff or use that time to actually tell a deep and rich story.

Which leads to where this whole train falls off the rails. As Cameron tells it, he's waited his whole life to make this movie and clearly this is true. The story has the simplistic world view of a pre-teen boy but yet it's trying to base itself on some very complex topics. The lack of nuance is frustrating. Evil corporate human villains vs nature is a story we here every day. The many directions things could have gone are all far more interesting than the straight line that was followed. There were so many problems with the writing I don't know where to begin. Everything from something as stupid as calling the name of the ore being mined Unobtainium to the epic boss battle ripped straight from a video game at the end needs a solid re-think.

The conversation on the trip home after the movie is probably the most telling part. I think we all felt Avatar had the potential to be fantastic. But instead of taking a risk it follows the simple path, makes the obvious choices and makes liberal use of tried and true clichés to get the job done. 

Despite all this I think it's still worth seeing this movie. The CG work that's been done here is unlike anything I've seen before. I would suggest trying an IMAX screening though as I think that might help with the lack of quality projection in a standard theatre.