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I saw it on New Year's Eve during the day at the Largest Imax In The World (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and I thought it was an awesome exerience. Sure, the story is simple and predictable, but you know what? It's told well, and that's what really matters, IMO (though the Earth Mother stuff made me groan a bit, I must admit). And really, the special effects are just incredible - and this is comning from a guy who is normally totally underwhelmed and unimpressed by CGI of all kinds.

[Maia]

I liked the film - and IMHO 3D worked pretty well. I only regret that I didn't see it in an IMAX cinema. The story - I liked the first half, but the second was a bit meh. Noble savages triumph over technology. Yawn. And have a totally illogical /suicidal cavalry charge, when stealth would have given them all advantages. Also, how enduring could be a victory over somebody who could nuke you from orbit if they chose?

It is sure amazing how detailed, believable and expressive they can make alien beings look by now. Only human teeth and kissing seemed totally out of place - otherwise the Na'vi were really well done. Gorgeous wildlife too and landscapes.

Still, a lot remained unexplained. I.e. why the Na'vi suddenly refused to interact with human scientists and abandoned the school. It is always disappointing when everybody refuses to evolve.

Nevertheless, very enjoyable. Is it made on the basis of japanese comics?

I am looking forward to Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" - the trailer made it seem that it will use 3D very well, too.

[BigFatCoward]

$804 million worldwide as of Wednesday, almost certainly going to be second biggest film of all time. does anybody see it getting up to Titanic levels. I think the main way it will is repeat viewings, how many of you will be going back to see it again? (if you haven't already).

[Calibandar]

Kal

Why do they need to send any ground troops? Were they afraid of anti-aircraft blue kitteh?

This is of course a perfectly valid complaint. Even when I saw the movie, transfixed as I was, I did wonder why there were ground troops at all, when the means to destroy Home Tree was always going to be, bombing it from above.

The only answer is of course that Cameron wanted a ground battle between marines * mecha's vs The Navi' and native wildlife and didn't bother inventing a proper reason for it. The battle turned out great though.

Maia

Still, a lot remained unexplained. I.e. why the Na'vi suddenly refused to interact with human scientists and abandoned the school. It is always disappointing when everybody refuses to evolve.

That didn't strike me as mysterious, actually. The Navi had initially allowed the scientists to contact them, but they found that this did not in any way stop the destruction of their way of life, all around them. As Sully says later on in the film, the humans did not have anything that the Navi wanted. They were content with their way of life and did not wish to trade it with anything humans had. It seemed to them there was no pay-off to the contact with the scientist dreamwalkers. It is when they found out that Sully was a warrior that they thought they could actually use him.

[Maia]

They were content with their way of life and did not wish to trade it with anything humans had. It seemed to them there was no pay-off to the contact with the scientist dreamwalkers. It is when they found out that Sully was a warrior that they thought they could actually use him.

Yea, it is this kind of stuff that irritates me. Celebration of close-minded ways of thought that keep the "noble savage" primitive. Of course the scientists did have something valuable to Navi - namely information about human behavior and capabilities. Also, general knowledge that may have been integrated without fundamentally changing Navi symbiosis with nature.

All such victories seem hollow, because realistically the humans can just show up again in a decade or so and, being better informed, easily crush any resistance.

[Max the Mostly Mediocre]

All such victories seem hollow, because realistically the humans can just show up again in a decade or so and, being better informed, easily crush any resistance.

This is probably what's going to happen in the second film.

[BigFatCoward]

This is probably what's going to happen in the second film.

You have to bare in mind the fact that the area of pandora we saw is very likely small, totally different eco systems might be on the far side of the planet. there may be huge and quite phenomonaly dangerous beasties who can be brought onside if/when a new invasion of humans comes.

[Starkess]

I just saw this today. I had vaguely heard about and wanted to see it, but I must have missed out on all this overhyping because I didn't even really know what it was about. My husband didn't even really want to see at all but went with me because I wanted to see it.

I LOVED IT. Okay, the story wasn't groundbreaking, but I'd rather have a tried-and-true plot than one that thinks it's so awesome for being super "intellectual" and everything. I'm a happy endings kind of girl for sure!

Obviously, it was absolutely gorgeous and stunning. The 3D aspect was really well done, it didn't rely on the gimmicky, stuff-pointing-at-you crap. The environment was just so lush and immersive, it was really amazing. I felt like I was actually there, it was great. I don't know if I'm just not as picky or not as attentive as some of you, but the CGI seemed pretty much seamless to me. Once or twice I kind of noticed when the humans and Navi were right next to each other, but for the most part it seemed amazingly real.

I know it doesn't make too much sense from a science standpoint that aliens would evolve anything like us, but I didn't mind that plot point. It definitely made it very easy to empathize with the Navi (the scene with their sooty faces streaked with tears comes to mind), but they were still definitely alien. Plus Neytiri was hot.

I enjoyed the acting quite a lot. Jake was kind of flat, but I didn't see that so much as bad acting as that is how the character was. Lost his legs, lost his will to live, and it's only as his avatar that he really comes to life. His sheer joy at digging his toes into the soil was palpable. And Neytiri was awesome. The amount of emotion she crammed into her voice was awesome.

Something really moving to me was the way they showed the marines listen to Col Meanie fearmongering, and the way they reacted. It's so true how easy it can be to work soldiers up into a frenzy, and they're not paid or taught to question any of those orders. Give them a good speech, some direct orders, and very few people would think twice. It's how the military works. And I think it's very necessary (I'm obviously not anti-military!), but it's also something that can be easily misused. The line about making them into your enemy because they have something you want rang chillingly true to me.

So overall, I was stunned and impressed, having gone into the movie with no expectations. My husband was floored, was so glad he went with me, and gushed about it the entire ride back home. I'm contemplating going again next week (I'm on leave until Friday and hubby is working, so lots of time fill!) just to soak it all in. I hope there are sequels!!

[Max the Mostly Mediocre]

You have to bare in mind the fact that the area of pandora we saw is very likely small, totally different eco systems might be on the far side of the planet. there may be huge and quite phenomonaly dangerous beasties who can be brought onside if/when a new invasion of humans comes.

You have to bear in mind the words, "Nuke the site from orbit."

There's been a hint that a sequel might take place

underground, which would be a reasonable response to the above, I suppose, but there have also been rumors that it might not take place on Pandora at all, so who the hell knows?

Of course, my favorite "I'll believe it when I see it" rumor has Cameron and Scott teaming up for the Alien prequel with Cameron's shiny new 3D tech.

[Brude]

The day-to-day box office numbers for this movie are just incredible. After only dropping 1.8% from first to second weekend, the weekday totals are actually higher in its second full week than in the first. Last week it made $16 million+ a day in North America from Monday to Wednesday, with an unsurprising drop to $11 million+ on Christmas Eve. These numbers are HUGE for weekdays, however this week it made $18-$19 million+ per day from Monday to Wednesday, again dropping on New Year's Eve to "only" about $15 million. So, the movie's numbers have only gone up in the second full week now, which says to me that a lot of people are probably going back for repeat viewings.

[Lord Slum]

I watched it on the 31st in IMAX 3D. The visuals were definitely stunning, I couldn't tell the difference between what was real and what wasn't. The story was downright awful and had way too many flaws from beginning to end. So far, nothing in 2009 will have beat District 9.

[Max the Mostly Mediocre]

So far, nothing in 2009 will have beat District 9.

Have you seen Moon?

[Lord Slum]

Have you seen Moon?

Yea. My mind is satisfied immensely but I still like D9 a little more. If 'Moon' is a 9.0, D9 would be 9.1 for me :)

[Ser Greguh]

The box office numbers are truly staggering, without a doubt. There's really no precedent for these sorts of numbers, and while I'd have said there's no way the movie would come close to Titanic's numbers when it was released, I find myself reluctantly retracting that guarantee. Titanic's primary weapon was its impossible staying power; it took 15 weeks before it finally had its first sub-$1M day, but it didn't make nearly as much in its first 2 weeks as Avatar has. Titanic was at $135M at this point in its run; Avatar is already over $300M. Other movies have made it to the various benchmarks faster, but with a very different model: a gargantuan opening weekend that fades exponentially in the forthcoming weeks. Avatar having made more in days 8-14 than it made in 1-7 has, I think, only one precedent amongst the biggest earners: Titanic. It's already set the record for the best ever 2nd weekend (edging out The Dark Knight) and stands poised to crush Spider-Man for best 3rd weekend (Titanic owns everything from 4th-12th weekend).

I don't know that people are going to keep going and going and going and going to it the way they did with Titanic, so I think that Titanic is still safe, but it's a lot less of a sure thing than I'd have said it was a couple of weeks ago...

[Brude]

I don't know that people are going to keep going and going and going and going to it the way they did with Titanic, so I think that Titanic is still safe, but it's a lot less of a sure thing than I'd have said it was a couple of weeks ago...

Yeah. New Years Day is up over Christmas Day by $2.1 million. By the end of Sunday we'll have the Saturday and Sunday estimates coming in. Scary how much this is making.

Of course, it's making this money on fewer ticket sales than the movies it's up against. Not only are base-line ticket prices higher, but people are also paying a premium to see it in 3D, IMAX, etc. Tickets are probably, on average close to 40%+ more expensive than what people paid to see Titanic or Spiderman, and even close to 1/3 more than what they paid for Dark Knight.

[Tb0ne]

Avatar is my generation's Star Wars.

Perhaps my judgement is clouded by the fact many of the concept artists that inspire me worked on the movie, that I want to work in CG, that I had been waiting for a director with the money and determination to create an alien world, that the CG was the best that has been done, and that the 3D illusion was the best I've that I've seen but I honestly wasn't as bothered by the predictablity, acting, or dialogue.

Adding in Moon and District 9, this has got to be one of the best years in Science Fiction yet.

I just hope that Cameron reconsiders making Robinson's Mars Trilogy because now I have little doubt that it's possible. Between the aging effects used in the Curious Case of Benjamin Button and the performance capture techniques and general advances in creating digital characters the immortal First 100 and and impossibly tall/thin Mars-born humans/animals could finally be believably portrayed.

[BigFatCoward]

You have to bear in mind the words, "Nuke the site from orbit."

i'm pretty sure for story telling purposes unobtainium will be volatile to a nuclear assault and necesitate a land assault.

[Brude]

I just hope that Cameron reconsiders making Robinson's Mars Trilogy because now I have little doubt that it's possible.

I think he's long since given up on the Mars movies, though he could just be waiting another ten years or so for the memory/taint of Mission to Mars and those other bad Mars movies to wear off. That was in play around 2000, right before those movies came out.

I worked for a company at the time that represented Dr. Robert Zubrin as a technical adviser to Hollywood. He designed NASA's actual plan to go to Mars and has written a number of books advocating that and other manned missions into deep space ("Entering Space" and "The Case For Mars," most prominently). He was hired for two of the Mars movies and was appalled with what they did scientifically in the end (I don't think they much listened to his technical advice). He met with Cameron and they were actually working very closely together on Cameron's planned Mars projects. He wanted to do a feature film about Mars as well as an IMAX documentary-style piece that would use many of the same effects and sets. Soon after they started talking Cameron bought (maybe optioned, not sure), the rights to Robinson's Mars trilogy. He and Zubrin both shared the same dream, which was to make movies about going to Mars so exciting and interesting it would help push public opinion towards funding real missions.

[Ran]

What I've heard is that Cameron is considering Battle Angel Alita, a manga series, for adaption to live action (with CG, of course). But whether he'll actually do it, whether he'll just focus on creating the inevitable Avatar sequels first, is a question.

[Brude]

Yeah, word of Battle Angel has been around about as long as for Avatar (I forget which was announced first, actually). I think Cameron is planning to become much more active again, producing more movies. So we might see Battle Angel, then more Avatar movies as well. I saw an interview (I think linked in this thread) where he said he he decided to take his break from directing movies these past years because he knew he couldn't do the deep sea diving stuff later in life when he too old, and it was really important to him. We might be seeing a new Cameron movie every few years for the next decade or so.