Spoilers ahead…
It’s a great theme-park ride. As a movie, though, it leaves you wanting for at least some drama to hold on to.
We are back on Pandora. We move through blue mists. We soar past the flying mountains we know from the earlier film. We enter the forest with winged creatures as sunlight falls in shafts, filtered by the thick flora. And then Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) opens his mouth and brings us crashing down to earth. He says, “The forests of Pandora have many dangers, but the biggest danger is that you may grow to love her too much.” And we instantly are reminded of both the pluses and minuses of the first Avatar. I wrote then: “The visuals are expectedly eye-popping, especially in 3-D, but couldn’t they have diverted a few more dollars towards the script?” I’d say the same about Avatar 2: The Way of the Water. It’s a great theme-park ride. As a movie, though, it makes you want to have a long interview with James Cameron about his big psychological shift from muscular action filmmaker to New Age-y, touchy-feely, digital world-builder.
You can read the rest of the review here:
https://www.galatta.com/english/movie/review/avatar-2/
And you can watch the video review here:
Copyright ©2022 GALATTA.
pankaj
December 16, 2022
hey Baradwaj Rangan, you are just a contrarian who would like to shit on everything famous. Whether it is Nolan or Cameron, you won’t every be satisfied with their films since you have an angst as to why so many people like their work. Keep sucking up to Alia Bhatt and her mediocre performances and let us viewers enjoy the cinematic experiences of Nolan and Cameron films.
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hari prasad
December 16, 2022
Dude calm down , he liked a lot of movies that the audience liked
for example Vikram , PS1 , Kantara , KGF2 , RRR etc.
He’s not some random twitter nutcase that hates on every movie to show he’s a cool guy.
Also he didn’t say the movie was utter trash , unbearable or something , he just said that Cameron focused more on the visual aspects that the writing felt generic..
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pankaj
December 16, 2022
@hariprasad I have read all his reviews of Nolan and post-Titanic Cameron films. While the whole world acknowledges their genius, this Rangan suddenly becomes an Einstein and criticizes them for no reason at all. He praises a drivel like Zero which is simply one of the worst films to come out of Bollywood, but he has problems with films like Inception and Avatar that have revolutionized film making across the industries.
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pankaj
December 16, 2022
@hariprasad Also if he is such a genuine critics, doesn’t he know that to make 3 billion dollars worldwide, the writing has to be generic so that it appeals to everyone across the world, from a guy sitting in Kanpur to someone sitting in Kentucky. The budget of the film is 400 million with a 1.2 billion break even mark, FYI.
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hari prasad
December 16, 2022
Inception , I can agree it somewhat revolutionized movie making with all the mind bending stuff and the complex narrative , but tell me in what way Avatar was a revolutionary movie , apart from it giving us spectacular 3D visuals?
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hari prasad
December 16, 2022
But then there are big budget movies that had some really amazing writing like the Indiana Jones trilogy , the Lord of the Rings trilogy , the MCU movies till Avengers Endgame to name a few.
The writing wasn’t generic in those movies and yet it struck a chord with audiences worldwide.
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pankaj
December 16, 2022
@hariprasad Are you joking? The visuals in Avatar (2009) can’t be matched even now. It opened the doors to 3D film making across the world with 6000 3D screens in 2009 to 1,20,000 3D screens in 2022. It has revolutionized the VFX and digital film making massively.
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hari prasad
December 16, 2022
But then 3D movies were not some exotic thing back in 2009 , we had 3D movies with spectacular visuals before Avatar like the Harry Potter movies , Journey to the Center of the Earth , Beowulf and even some animation movies like Up had those.
It’s not like only Avatar did it.
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pankaj
December 16, 2022
@hariprasad the writing was not generic in Inception, Interstellar, then why did this Einstein criticize those films. He has this habit of contradicting anything that is popular from Hollywood.
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hari prasad
December 16, 2022
I don’t remember him saying about Inception like the writing was generic and so ordinary , he partly liked it and partly went meh about the dream conceptions.
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lurker
December 16, 2022
@pankaj Nolan isn’t exactly revered as an artistic filmmaker by Hollywood film critics either. His ideas are great, not sure about his writing being great (e.g the cheesy out-of-place dialogue about love in Interstellar was definitely not great)
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pankaj
December 16, 2022
@lurker still far better than most of the drivel Bollywood produces and Baradwaj likes ..
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pankaj
December 16, 2022
@lurker Also, the films that Nolan or Cameron make are appealing to every section of the society which is why they do box office like 900 million, 2.7 billion, 1.2 billion etc. They are not Paul Thomas Anderson or James Grey who have been burning the studios money all their lives. But when it comes to Bollywood, Rangan wants to treat the films as some form of escapism but in films of Nolan and Cameron, he is not willing to that himself. Rangan is obsessed with box office numbers as can be seen in his latest roundtable, but when a hollywood film maker makes a film to destroy box office, he has a problem with it.. Hypocrisy at its best
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vishal yogin
December 16, 2022
Peter Bradshaw says exactly the same thing 🙂
I’m not gonna watch.
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hari prasad
December 16, 2022
But then he can’t talk about the nuances , the message , the philosophy the movie is tryna convey in a roundtable discussion that’s all about South Indian cinema doing bigger and better at the box office than Bollywood.
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Macaulay Perapulla
December 16, 2022
@Pankaj, if I were you, I would write a long, well-written disagreement of why I think Avatar 2 is so amazing and share my experience in the ‘Readers Write In column’ to have a wonderful conversation about how each of us processes movies differently in our heads, as our heads and guts are much unique than anyone else’s in the world. And it’s okay:)
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Mahi
December 16, 2022
lol this comment section’s a bit of an abomination so far
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karzzexped
December 16, 2022
@Pankaj – Have you watched the film yet?
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hari prasad
December 16, 2022
When is this avar edhu pannalum nalla dhan pannuvaru , unaku dhan adhu therila attitude is gonna change?
Even Baddy had issues with some Kamal and Mani movies despite them being his favorites , he wasn’t a blind follower of them.
Do we see Baddy defend a Mangamma Sabatham or a Japanil Kalyanaraman just because they were Kamal movies or an Idhaya Kovil just because Mani Ratnam directed it.
I’m not saying Avatar was that bad but can’t a guy have mixed feelings on a movie , why should it always fall under “so good” or ” so bad “?
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RK
December 16, 2022
Do people even read the whole review & make sense of it in totality before commenting on it? I seriously doubt whether people skim the essay to find things to be offended. This is not to make fun of pankaj or even particularly about him.
In the review, BR has actually compared Cameron with Coppola. For all his greatness, especially technical, I never thought Cameron’s films had that kind of emotional depth. I think, a more appropriate comparison would be with Spielberg, a master technician, who makes near-great films.
I have probably seen Terminator II more times than Godfather, but are they in the same class? That’s a real and not a rhetorical question.
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shaviswa
December 16, 2022
I didn’t like Titanic. Nor did I like Avatar. IMO very boring movies but staged magnificently. Felt a lot of money was wasted to present such tiring films.
Looks like Avatar-2 is also one such film
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Madan
December 16, 2022
“In the review, BR has actually compared Cameron with Coppola. For all his greatness, especially technical, I never thought Cameron’s films had that kind of emotional depth.” – I read that part too. I lean towards your kind of take where I value well done dramas with characters more. But if I play devil’s advocate and assume that a critic rates films (and ergo, directors) by how well they execute in a given genre, I can see how it might be possible to regard both Cameron and Coppola as great. Because, for instance, I don’t subscribe to this ‘tragedy is king’ theory in music at all and tend to accept a chosen style for what it is and evaluate how well the music achieves that style. So, for instance, I would not scoff at rating Sparks on par with Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen. Personally, I do like Sparks more, comfortably. Yes, it’s all irony and may be regarded by some as ‘unemotional’ but it’s extremely innovative and dazzling in that sort of art-pop space. So if the question is whether Cameron was as pathbreaking in action as Coppola was in humanizing mafia stories and making melodramas out of them, then I don’t think a ‘yes’ answer to that is implausible.
Speaking of Titanic, that might actually be my favourite Cameron film because it’s a romantic drama mounted on a grand scale. It feels like Ang Li on a Cameron visual scale. Avatar on the other hand is almost entirely about the visuals and predicted the theme park domination of the BO in recent years. In that sense, it has been one of his most unfortunately influential films. I am not quite sure where pankaj is coming from in hyphenating Nolan and Cameron as they are very different directors.
For good measure, let me add something unsavoury about Avatar here. While the visuals were breathtakingly mounted and were as dazzling in 2009 as Jurassic Park was in 1993, the basic design of Pandora was heavily influenced by Roger Dean’s artwork. It’s not merely my say-so. Lot of people noticed it and they ‘influenced’ Dean to file an unsuccessful copyright infringement claim on Cameron. But the similarities are noticeable enough to at least suggest that Cameron’s visual world for Avatar was quite derivative.
http://copyright.nova.edu/avatar-lawsuit/
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Rocky
December 16, 2022
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Raghu Narayanan
December 16, 2022
Frederick Forsyth once said that an author has at best six good books in him. How many great movies does a director have in him?
As regards Coppola and Cameron, not sure if BR actually compared them or their movies. He seemed to merely call out a similarity that both have had a string of great movies – Coppola earlier and Cameron later. Even if we put them besides each other to compare, I would just say that there are many routes to greatness and these two chose different ways to achieve convergence at the peak of greatness. However, in Coppola’s case, at least as far as Godfather 1 goes, a big chunk of credit should go to Mario Puzo, no?
The movies that BR listed for Cameron as part of his initial string of hits has True Lies as the last mention. It’s a classic case for ‘spot the odd one out ‘ game. While the earlier ones were top-draw original, creative and fantasy on a scale never before seen and hence catapulted Cameron to greatness, True Lies indicated that the well of creativity was going dry. It was so un-Cameron-ish. Not only that, it was a sub-par stereotypical spy ‘thriller’. It seemed that Cameron experimented on this movie without actually knowing what he wanted to do next.
Then Titanic happened, which was a whole new direction away from the super-creative original science fiction fantasies which worked for him earlier. But even here, the plot was so unexceptional that Cameron had to lean too heavily on visual effects for completing the package. And the success of Titanic seemed to have confirmed the way forward for Cameron – dazzle with never seen before visual effects and don’t invest too much time or thinking on the plot / characters or their dynamics, etc.
Of course, I have not seen Avatar 2 yet, so have to reserve my opinion on that just yet. But a curious thought occurred to me. How would the later Cameron movies stand up if viewed on a regular TV or iPad – I mean minus the out of the world visual experience? While I am sure that the first and second Terminators were just as exciting as when I watched them in theaters, I cannot be so sure that Avatar would be just as good – not just between its theater vs TV experience, but between Terminator 2 on TV vs Avatar on TV? Perhaps it’s the right test?
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Santa
December 17, 2022
@pankaj: you clearly seem to have read BRs reviews of various other English and Hindi movies and have determined that his movie sensibilities do not match yours. Perfectly fine. Sincere question then: Why bother continuing to read his reviews? Why follow a critic who you believe is a “hypocrite”?
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KayKay
December 17, 2022
And so……..13 years and 3 and a quarter hours later…I find myself having the same reaction to AVATAR 2 as I did the original. As a virtuoso piece of technical film-making, this kicks all kinds of ass, with Cameron, like George Miller, essentially showing 99% of all working film-makers today how to ACTUALLY shoot great action. The images exist for the sole purpose of making glorious love to your visual cortex. The 3D is fucking amazing, the way only Cameron seems to know his way around. This is like CINEMA cinema, the kind Scorsese and Coppola wax lyrical about, where just the thought of watching this on your laptop makes you feel dirty.
But…like it’s predecessor, all of this visual razzle dazzle is in service to a storyline so generic, you can predict character arcs and story beats 30 minutes before they pay off. Yeah, I get it, you spend a gazillion dollars, you need to make it back with a plot that needs to be something easily understood and grasped when played across 5 continents. But surely a balance could have been struck between something like TENET where a film-maker effectively disappears up his own ass and something so utterly predictable like what Cameron serves up here?
Still, it may be awhile before you get such visual splendor on screen, and it’ll most likely be whenever Cameron decides to unveil AVATAR 3, so my humble recommendation is to see this on the biggest IMAX 3D screen you can find. It’s worth it.
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pankaj
December 17, 2022
But…like it’s predecessor, all of this visual razzle dazzle is in service to a storyline so generic, you can predict character arcs and story beats 30 minutes before they pay off. Yeah, I get it, you spend a gazillion dollars, you need to make it back with a plot that needs to be something easily understood and grasped when played across 5 continents. But surely a balance could have been struck between something like TENET where a film-maker effectively disappears up his own ass and something so utterly predictable like what Cameron serves up here?
@kaykay See, this is what my problem is with hypocrites like Baradwaj Rangan and his followers. RRR had the most generic story possible, yet it was praised to the skies by Rangan and members here as if it was the second coming of Jesus. But if Cameron does the same thing, he is criticized. Both Rajamouli and Cameron are tyring to cater to people of all ages and this is the reason that they can’t overcomplicate their plots. However, it is only Cameron, who btw is miles ahead of Rajamouli in technical departments, is criticized. Another example of Rangan’s hypocrisy is praising a drivel like Zero with no worthy plot to the skies. Do you really think Zero is a better film than Avatar or Avatar 2?
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pankaj
December 17, 2022
Then Titanic happened, which was a whole new direction away from the super-creative original science fiction fantasies which worked for him earlier. But even here, the plot was so unexceptional that Cameron had to lean too heavily on visual effects for completing the package. And the success of Titanic seemed to have confirmed the way forward for Cameron – dazzle with never seen before visual effects and don’t invest too much time or thinking on the plot / characters or their dynamics, etc.
@Naraynan Would you please say the same thing about your God, Rajamouli whose stories are absolute basic, but the scale and action pieces are what pull audiences to cinemas OR is your criticism directed to legendary Hollywood directors like James Cameron
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pankaj
December 17, 2022
I have probably seen Terminator II more times than Godfather, but are they in the same class? That’s a real and not a rhetorical question.
@RK One is a blockbuster in truest sense and one is an auteur driven classic that did decent numbers at the box office when it released. How can you compare two films that are as different as chalk and cheese. It is like comparing RRR and Pather Panchali. In your language, I have probably seen RRR more times than Pather Panchali, but are they in the same class? That’s a real and not a rhetorical question.
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brangan
December 17, 2022
Raghu Narayanan: “As regards Coppola and Cameron, not sure if BR actually compared them or their movies. He seemed to merely call out a similarity that both have had a string of great movies – Coppola earlier and Cameron later.”
Iwanted to show Cameron’s genius period (IMO) and say that like many other directors, he dazzled with a string a great films once upon a time. And then, like Coppola, he began to be “not great” IMO.
I coukd have also picked John Ford or Fellini or anyone else and cited their “geeat phase” but Coppola came instantly to mind. Hence…
PS: “BR and his followers” made me giggle. Like I am Jesus or sonething. LOL.
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pankaj
December 17, 2022
@BaradwajRangan I hope other directors transition to their “not great” phase quickly wherein they can make two of the highest grossing films in cinema history, since at the end of the day making movies is a business and given the focus of your recent roundtable was just box office, I am sure you also consider film making a business.
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Raghu Narayanan
December 17, 2022
@BR (Or should it be Jesus going forward 😆), yes I am on the same page as well as regards a change in trajectory of Cameron’s movies, and IMHO it started with True Lies. Nevertheless, just like all of us here surely, I have thoroughly enjoyed all his movies till date – some more than others for sure. My favorites are Terminator 1 for original concept, Terminator 2 for the presentation and though other movies of his are leagues ahead in terms of effects, my emotional favorite is the Abyss 🙂.
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shaviswa
December 17, 2022
Sigh!!! We have come to a stage where you cannot state even what you like or not like in a movie. You will get labelled everything.
BTW I do not think RRR was regarded as a wonderful world class movie. It was praised as a masala movie that was presented well.
I have not seen Avatar-2 (and don’t plan to having watched Cameron’s boring earlier films). Maybe Avatar – 2 is Hollywood masala that is presented well. 😉
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Macaulay Perapulla
December 17, 2022
“given the focus of your recent roundtable was just box office, I am sure you also consider filmmaking a business.”
That made me chuckle. Actually, BR is a Jesus in a land of Romans obsessed with box-office numbers, day openings and what not:) If I can get more cheesy (now that you are getting increasingly caustic), he is a guiding light for those wayward, lonely, idealist dreamers who dream of making art in a land of cinema where the rule of the jungle applies: hunt or be hunted. I dont see any other critic who maintains a puritan old-fashioned stance of worshipping form (over content) at the altar of cinema.
Aspiring to make art in today’s ADD world is foolhardy as it gets and we need more Jesuses to show artists called filmmakers light…. at the end of the projection screen.
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Madan
December 17, 2022
“RRR had the most generic story possible, yet it was praised to the skies by Rangan and members here as if it was the second coming of Jesus” –
But did he?
This is the title of the RRR review: “SS Rajamouli’s ‘RRR’ is an entertaining masala epic with great star turns, but deeper emotions might have made this even better ”
From the body of the review:
“I wished the film had been so much more. Mainly, I wished there had been more emotional moments”
“but this friendship needed to be established deeper for us to feel the full weight of the second half. Right now, it just looks like a series of action scenes. Even in the first half, a betrayal would have meant more had the emotions been stronger”
pankaj, did you actually read BR’s RRR review or are you just projecting here? It sure sounds a lot like the latter to me.
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karzzexped
December 17, 2022
@Madan – If I’m not wrong, BR gave a review in a similar vein for RRR and Avatar 2. Big screen experience, visual spectacle, but lacked the emotional heft of both their previous magnum opuses.
It’s almost funny to think BR’s sole focus is about box office records, particularly at a time when he’s been asking why there’s so much of emphasis on the box office numbers compared to the quality of the film.
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Madan
December 17, 2022
pankaj: Also you keep saying RRR had the most generic story possible (perhaps to manufacture an equivalence with Avatar). But it’s time to argue that point. RRR is an alternative history woven around two real life freedom fighters and contrasts their approaches – one wishes to rebel from the outside while the other wants to infiltrate the British Raj and use his power to arm revolutionaries on the outside.
Exactly how many films have you watched with this plotline specifically the aspect of contrasting the methods used by two anti-establishment figures and discussing, if not in the greatest depth, the question of whether the ends justify the means? The question by itself at least has some weight even if the discussion within the film is quite truncated in service of more action reels. But Avatar’s plot really didn’t break new ground coming years after Jaws, Aliens, Jurassic Park or Godzilla.
And I could live with the plot being generic if the treatment of the plot wasn’t so generic to boot. It’s a question worth discussing and you can’t run away from it by dragging in Nolan just because BR has carped about his works (for that matter, BR has also carped about Meryl Streep). Nolan is a completely different kind of filmmaker from Cameron and whether one likes his films or not, it is very difficult to call his treatment of plots generic. Cameron post Titanic seems to have become a bit like Zemeckis post What Lies His Beneath (ok, not THAT bad). Zemeckis has had a more consistent run of success post that semi-disappointing (commercially) film but he has obtained that success by making extremely harmless fare like Polar Express. It’s like somebody did a Face Off on him and the new soul in Zemeckis’ body is an absolutely undistinguished but obedient purveyor of kids’ stories.
Note, I am commenting here on Avatar the OG movie. I haven’t yet watched the new one and will wait until I have to pass judgment. Not that it matters because it doesn’t sound like you have watched the new one either. So this is just as bad as using bad reviews to pre-decide that the movie is bad – you are saying because it’s Cameron, it has to be good even though you haven’t seen it.
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pankaj
December 17, 2022
But Avatar’s plot really didn’t break new ground coming years after Jaws, Aliens, Jurassic Park or Godzilla
@Madan I would have written a long statement against the points you raised but this line right here makes me believe that you are not serious at all. How are these films related to Avatar at all? These are creature disaster films that have absolutely no relation to Avatar. Even Steven Spielberg agrees that there is no better visual film maker in this day and age. You might now know this but Spielberg visited the sets of Avatar to learn the mo cap tech that Cameron invented which he later used in Tintin. Watch the DGA conversation between Spielberg and Cameron and how much respect does Spielberg have for Cameron and vice versa.
(for that matter, BR has also carped about Meryl Streep)
This makes me happy. Now I can 100 % say that BR is a troller who attacks successful Hollywood artists just to get some cheap publicity.
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Madan
December 17, 2022
” These are creature disaster films that have absolutely no relation to Avatar.” – Aliens is a creature disaster film? If ETs are ‘creatures’ the same way as sharks and dinosaurs, what’s so special about the navi? Or do you perhaps believe that navis actually exist?
Sorry, who’s the troll here?
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Madan
December 17, 2022
And if you really want to try to get super specific to score a point, then there have been the Star Wars or LOTR series too which involve fantasy universes. In any event, there really isn’t anything unique about the CONCEPT of Avatar. So you mentioning what Spielberg said about Cameron’s ability to capture visuals is neither here nor there, because nobody here has contested THAT aspect of Avatar. More like you found a non sequitur to run and hide away into.
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shaviswa
December 17, 2022
@madan
I am suspecting that this could be a paid troll too.
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pankaj
December 17, 2022
And if you really want to try to get super specific to score a point, then there have been the Star Wars or LOTR series too which involve fantasy universes. In any event, there really isn’t anything unique about the CONCEPT of Avatar. So you mentioning what Spielberg said about Cameron’s ability to capture visuals is neither here nor there, because nobody here has contested THAT aspect of Avatar. More like you found a non sequitur to run and hide away into.
Bahubali was a scene by scene literal adaptation of The Lion King. I hope you throw some shade on SSR as you are dissing one of the greatest film makers of all times James Cameron. BTW, Avatar 2 legs are going to be humongous.
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pankaj
December 17, 2022
@shaviswa Sorry, India is too small a market for James Cameron that he would pay me to defend a nobody like Baradwaj Rangan. Cameron would not even know that Rangan exists.. I hope BR realizes this.
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pankaj
December 17, 2022
BR about Titanic: He made The Titanic, and though the disaster sequences were epic, the love story exposed his weaknesses in dramatic writing
BR about Brahmastra: Ranbir and Alia do their best to sell this material. Their love scenes are lovely
Does anyone of you really think the love story in Brahmastra (which is widely panned by the audiences) was better than Titanic ?
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hari prasad
December 17, 2022
Just because a greatest filmmaker of all time has directed a movie , people should not criticize it or say something that didn’t work for them in the movie , they should blindly say ” wah re wah , cameron kamaal kar diya bhai”.
Thats what Pankaj is tryna convey here.
Naan sollala , “avar edhu pannalum nalla dhan pannuvaru , unaku dhan adhu therila” attitude , that’s on full display here.
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Madan
December 17, 2022
“Bahubali was a scene by scene literal adaptation of The Lion King. ”
So? How is that relevant again to a review of Avatar? I didn’t make some incredible claim about either Baahubali or RRR. And why are you talking about Baahubali? Is it because you haven’t watched RRR and can’t discuss what I pointed out about the plot so you want to move goalposts? Or…do you think everyone commenting here is a ‘Madrasi’ and so you assume we would all be up in arms if you ‘dare’ diss SSR? It sure sounds a lot like it.
“I hope you throw some shade on SSR as you are dissing one of the greatest film makers of all times James Cameron. ” – I haven’t said anything superlative about SSR anyway. You on the other hand seem keen to suggest we should rank Cameron on the same plane as a Hitchcock or Kubrick (greatest film maker of all time) just because his films run well. This is like saying Taylor Swift is greater than Aretha Franklin just because her albums sell.
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pankaj
December 17, 2022
Just because a greatest filmmaker of all time has directed a movie , people should not criticize it or say something that didn’t work for them in the movie , they should blindly say ” wah re wah , cameron kamaal kar diya bhai”.
Then ask him to criticize the drivel that Zero was, where he found the most absurdist elements of the film to be endearing
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pankaj
December 17, 2022
You on the other hand seem keen to suggest we should rank Cameron on the same plane as a Hitchcock or Kubrick (greatest film maker of all time) just because his films run well.
I have never said that any of that. However, when it comes to A-list Bollywood films, BR is super lenient just because they provide escapism. However, he does not apply the same lens to Cameron’s films. Cameron is the best when it comes to making escapist cinemas. No one is doing it like him. The phase 4 of MCU has been a complete disaster. Nolan is moving to historical epics like Dunkirk and Oppenheimer.
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Madan
December 17, 2022
“Does anyone of you really think the love story in Brahmastra (which is widely panned by the audiences) was better than Titanic ?” – No and that’s not what he said anyway. You are blatantly cherry picking to suit your narrative.
Read the sub-headline for Brahmastra first:
“You can see all the money they spent up there, on the big screen. But the film never rises above the “watchable” or “hmmm…not bad” category.”
Also, quote the full sentence if you intend to twist its meaning (but of course, if you did, you wouldn’t be able to and you think we are all so dumb that we can’t simply read that sentence and point it out to you anyway):
“Their love scenes are lovely, even if these scenes keep sapping the film of momentum.”
Seriously, who do you think you’re fooling with this, um, tomfoolery?
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Madan
December 17, 2022
“I have never said that any of that.” – No, you just did. You called him one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. You should have qualified your statement then and there. You don’t get to backpedal now. I might offer that courtesy to one interested in a genuine discussion but not to one clearly arguing in bad faith as you are.
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hari prasad
December 17, 2022
But then , Anand L Rai is no James Cameron , the greatest of all time…
Why are you asking BR to compare a “worthless movie” like Zero with Titanic and Avatar , probably the only 2 movies you’d have watched that were directed by the G.O.A.T Cameron.
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pankaj
December 17, 2022
Why are you asking BR to compare a “worthless movie” like Zero with Titanic and Avatar , probably the only 2 movies you’d have watched that were directed by the G.O.A.T Cameron.
Look at this review of Zero where he is praising the film as if it is a Citizen Kane and as if the audience is stupid to miss those meta references that even Aanand L Rai is not aware of.
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Madan
December 17, 2022
“Why are you asking BR to compare a “worthless movie” like Zero with Titanic and Avatar ” – Yeah, bit like a KL Rahul fanboy asking ‘critics’ to first criticize the lineup of the Sydney team that got bowled out for 15 or something before criticizing KLR. Talk about a low bar.
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pankaj
December 17, 2022
Why are you asking BR to compare a “worthless movie” like Zero with Titanic and Avatar , probably the only 2 movies you’d have watched that were directed by the G.O.A.T Cameron.
No amount of sarcasm would change the fact that Cameron, is infact G.O.A.T
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shaviswa
December 17, 2022
I didn’t realise you thought I would say Cameron hired you to do this 😂
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pankaj
December 17, 2022
“I have never said that any of that.” – No, you just did. You called him one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. You should have qualified your statement then and there. You don’t get to backpedal now. I might offer that courtesy to one interested in a genuine discussion but not to one clearly arguing in bad faith as you are.
He is one of the greatest film makers of all times. There is no doubt about that. Even the harshest critics of Cameron would agree with it. He has single handedly revolutionized the tentpole film making across the world.
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hari prasad
December 17, 2022
He said Cameron is a great director , but you’re saying Cameron is the greatest director..
Adhukum idhukum difference hai boss…
According to me , great directors exist , but greatest? Idk!
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Madan
December 17, 2022
“He is one of the greatest film makers of all times. ” – So there you go again, you are once again saying he is as great as Hitchcock or Kubrick. You can’t have it both ways. Embrace your blinded fanboyism whole hog and defend it. But that then means you have to allow others their opinions-you-simply-cannot-agree-with too.
By the way I pulled up a number of lists not made by any desis ranking greatest directors of all time. In none of them does Cameron rank in the top 50. So first support your case suitably if you can – you are not some ultimate authority that we have to listen to whatever you say.
Here’s one list:
https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/best-movie-directors-of-all-time/
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Madan
December 17, 2022
Here’s a second, by EW:
https://ew.com/article/1996/04/19/50-greatest-directors-and-their-100-best-movies/
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Madan
December 17, 2022
And here’s Mubi list:
https://mubi.com/lists/500-greatest-directors-and-their-greatest-film
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pankaj
December 17, 2022
Cherrypicking websites aint gonna help you:
https://parade.com/1048720/maramovies/best-directors/
You are just a blind hater who despises Cameron when the man has done so much for blockbuster film making. The only one who could compete with him in terms of blockbuster film making is a young Steven Spielberg.
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pankaj
December 17, 2022
https://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/the-most-oscar-worthy-directors-of-all-time
https://www.thetoptens.com/movies/greatest-film-directors-of-all-time/
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Madan
December 17, 2022
That’s one list. I gave you three. Do you play for the Morocco or Croatian team and do you think football matches are won by scoring fewer goals than the opposing team?
Even screenrant doesn’t rank him in the top 10. Hey, that’s the 4th goal, courtesy of a Messi/Mbappe assist?
https://screenrant.com/best-directors-all-time-according-ranker/
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Madan
December 17, 2022
One more:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/features/page/0,11456,1082823,00.html
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Madan
December 17, 2022
The last one. Seeing as any excuse would suit a tyrant, I am not going to bother with more list. Cameron makes it here but way down at 78, definitely not anywhere near Hitchock or Kubrick.
https://thecinemaarchives.com/2020/08/17/the-250-best-directors-of-all-time/
Nobody actually said Cameron isn’t a great director. But according to pankaj hyperventilating fanboy, anyone who doesn’t praise Avatar to the skies is a ‘hater’. That sounds awfully like pankaj is a fake Indian account of the man himself.
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musical V
December 17, 2022
Arguments can never have a winner.
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Shalom
December 17, 2022
BR, I have a query about Coppola here.
In your recent S&S entry, you had this to say in the comments: “Someone had asked up in the comments why not many Indian films make it to the list. It’s because we make many movies but not many that use “cinema as an art form”. When we take India, directors like Mani Ratnam have been pushing towards this for a long time. But we are still at an infant stage. I love THIRUCHITRAMBALAM to bits, but if you play it on the radio, you will get 90% of it. You cannot do that with IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, which has to be SEEN to be felt.” When it comes to Coppola’s post-70s films, I feel exactly the way you feel about In the Mood for Love. In that, he started pushing himself in regards to his use of the medium and in turn produced some really stellar (and emotional) work in films like One from the Heart, Rumble Fish, Dracula, Youth Without Youth, Tetro, and Twixt. For someone who harbors a great admiration for filmmakers who approach cinema as an art form, what do you feel is lacking in his post-70s work for you to feel it was “not great?”. I ask because there’s a popular perception among cinephiles that he became a sort of “director-for-hire” and churned out bland rubbish, but upon seeing those movies, I felt like they were anything but and was a bit confounded with their dismissal by film lovers. What I’m really trying to ask is this: is the fact that they aren’t appreciated the same way as his 70s work a matter of emotional “connect” or is there something in his film-making (that one can point out) that makes people feel this way?
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hari prasad
December 17, 2022
Pankaj , we’re not saying Cameron is a shitty director , he’s one of the greatest , but you’re so blinded by the fanboyism that you can’t take it when someone criticises or says some things that didn’t work in his movies , even Cameron would agree that his movies aren’t 100 percent perfect.
Love Cameron as much you want , admire his works but don’t get blinded by the fanboyism so badly that you can’t take an opposing opinion and dont blindly say “he’s a G.O.A.T , you should not say anything , he’s a box office emperor”.
Chennai Express remains SRK’s highest grossing movie , are you gonna say that’s his best and greatest movie ever?
A grand box office success doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s automatically the best ever movie to grace the screens.
So , face criticisms and don’t just show box office records to prove Cameron’s the G.O.A.T .
If box office records are how you value greatness , then Rohit Shetty , Atlee , Rajamouli would be the greatest Indian directors of all time.
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pankaj
December 17, 2022
fuck SRK and Alia Bhatt.
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RK
December 17, 2022
@Madan: I also do not consider ‘tragedy as king’. An internet music reviewer used to have five concepts based on which to judge an artist, out of which one was emotional resonance. Though there are several criteria that attracts me to any kind of art, the single biggest one is Emotional Resonance. That emotion can be laughter, thrill or even fear.
I would actually rate Sparks above Cohen, who I think is more a poet than a songwriter. To me Sparks music is all about elation of the spirit. Heck, on some days, I consider Sly & The Family Stone to be even better than The Beatles. All I need to come out come of a gloomy situation is to hear ‘Sing a Simple Song’.
Of course, Bob Dylan is in a different plane all together. To me, he is incomparable in the sense that he defies categorisation. Though an artist like him can only come into being in the 60’s USA, he does not seem to personify it, unlike Beatles, Who or Rolling Stones. Dylan’s music is truly soul stirring, not soul soothing.
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karzzexped
December 17, 2022
This thread reminds me so much about the “Interstellar” review thread 8 years back. It was Nolan then, it is Cameron now. #FeelingNostalgic.
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Madan
December 17, 2022
RK: Wow, it’s extremely rare for me to meet someone here who knows about and has heard Sparks! Usually the reaction is more along the lines of “You mentioned Kant and I was shocked, so shocked…” 😉
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Vignesh
December 17, 2022
Saw a comment that tried to put SSR, Rohit Shetty and Atlee in one line. There is no need to put SSR in the category of Rohith Shetty or Atlee.
SSR is a brilliant and great director who is far ahead as a filmmaker than the other 2 who can at best be said as average. In terms of filmmaking, perhaps the ones to be compared with SSR in India would be a Bhansali (or Shanker to a lesser extent). Even in terms of box office, Ramesh Sippy or Atlee doesn’t generate huge hits which collects anywhere near even quarter the collection last 2 SSR films got and their films are not loved or praised by even audience from their respective markets, let alone across the nation. Atleast someone like Rajkumar Hirani can be a comparison in that aspect as he has given continuous huge blockbusters (or Industry Hits) in the past and generally got appreciation all over (although even his films now highly pale in comparison to SSR movie collections).
And SSR films are not just wonderful visual spectacles, they have real (though amped up) emotions powering them that any common/ordinary Indian (and RRR success across the globe proves it is not just Indians, but humanity anywhere) can relate and feel in his/her heart.
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Vignesh
December 17, 2022
*Requesting to read it as Rohith Shetty instead of Ramesh Sippy in my above comment where it got mixed up at one place.
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hari prasad
December 17, 2022
Adha pottadhu naan dhan…
I know Rajamouli is a superior director than those two guys , but why I mentioned him along with them coz of the box office success they give to their respective industries , irrespective of how their movies are received by the audience.
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RK
December 17, 2022
@Madan: Sparks are very unique and don’t sound like nobody else. They don’t even have a 70s sound. I have heard only their first four albums & can recollect songs only from Sparks & Kimono. Since this discussion, I want to listen to them again & maybe explore their later work, which I know nothing about.
I have never met anyone in person who has actually heard Sparks. I have never seen albums on sale. My own musical journey was shaped by the internet music reviewers of early 2000s like Mark Prindle, George Starostin & Captain Marvel. So it leans heavily on 60s & 70s rock and pop music.
I loved your blog post on Annie Haslam, who I know only her work in Renaissance. I personally think you write better on music than films. Oh and I really miss BR’s write-ups on music. So, a gentle request for that.
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Sam
December 18, 2022
@all which movies do a good job of balancing a grand universe with solid character development?
Even Babylon isn’t getting great reviews, which would’ve been a solid example if done right.
Off the top of my head Apocalypse Now comes as the best example.
Maybe Everything Everywhere All at Once (in a distant 2nd place) but thats more chaotic than grand.
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Madan
December 18, 2022
RK: I really can’t agree more with pretty much everything you’ve written about Sparks. It’s one of those treasures of the 70s that’s hidden in plain sight. Kimono and Propaganda are my favourites too. I wish they had never changed their formula because they kind of lost their uniqueness in their conscious attempts to keep changing. Still, there are a bunch of entertaining tracks strewn across Big Beat, Introducing Sparks, Gratuitous Sax and Senseless Violins, Li’l Beethoven and Hello Young Lovers. Haven’t explored the ones after.
I did find CDs of Kimono and Propaganda. Cannot recall whether that was on Amazon (when Amazon still sold music CDs) or in the now long-dead Landmark store at Phoenix, Lower Parel. But none of the others.
It’s an even more incredible coincidence that you also knew of Annie Haslam beforehand even if through her Renaissance work (which is the meat anyway). You’ll agree that it’s hard likewise to meet anyone who’s heard of Renaissance/Annie Haslam.
Now that you have requested, I will surely do a music-related RWI, probably on Sparks.
In the meantime, I just wrote this one on my blog about one of the best selling albums of all time that hardly anybody talks about today. Funny that it came just two years after Titanic!
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Madan
December 18, 2022
Seen it at the 11 AM show today.
As you put it, this movie makes you remark about how breathtaking it is rather than make you hold your breath. This is a movie to be only seen and not felt. I did enjoy it while it lasted because the visuals are incredible on 3D. But there are hardly any moments from it to take back for an OTT watch. There was one moment when the whale like thingy attacks the ship. A lot of college age folk had come for this show and some of them whistled when that happened. I think THAT’S what people wanted more of. Some viscerality rather than a painting that moves, flies and swims.
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Aman Basha
December 18, 2022
@Madan: Congrats on being the second person to actually comment after watching the movie in a 80 comment long thread 🙂
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Raj
December 18, 2022
Are a few comments near the top being covered by the link in Madan’s comment (to RK) for anyone else? Seems to be appearing that way for me on my phone tablet and computer
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Aman Basha
December 18, 2022
BR, consider this feedback from a regular reader, this new format of having new comments at the top is making it impossible to visit older threads. Also if someone stays away from the blog for a while and comes back, it’d be extremely hard for him to trace a discussion.
If people wanted the latest comments to be readily available, they could easily click on the comments sidebar instead. Could we have the old format please?
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JPhil
December 18, 2022
@Pankaj ,
Chill. Really, just chill . Trolling like this, little man, is not on . Period .
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Ravi K
December 19, 2022
Haven’t seen Avatar 2 yet, but I recently went to a 3D screening of Avatar, and while I still had the same criticisms I had in 2009, it felt like a breath of fresh air compared to what blockbuster filmmaking became in the subsequent years, thanks largely to the MCU onslaught. Even the special effects held up extremely well, thanks not only to the quality of work, but the beautiful design. No desaturated, low-contrast, dim look here to hide VFX cost-cutting!
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vijay
December 19, 2022
Avatar 2 ended up being a middling exercise in VFX minus the novelty of the universe and its characters that kept us engaged for a while in part 1. Its disappointing that after 13 yrs Cameron chose to revisit and milk this rather than go after an altogether new theme..in a way it reflects the mediocrity of the current era of biggie movie-making full of reboots and reduxes and probably is only fitting. Forget about Spielberg or Cameron there is’nt even a John Mctiernan around amongst the current crop.
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vijay
December 19, 2022
..but hey even at its worst, this still cant be half as bad as what this is looking like.
Anirudh and Tharuthala are a match made in hell. Latest earsore
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karzzexped
December 19, 2022
@Aman Basha: I’m catching the movie this week in IMAX(Bangalore). The premium format pre-booking was fully booked in minutes. I’m travelling from Chennai to Bangalore just for this – since the sound and the overall quality of SPI Palazzo in Chennai has greatly deteriorated.
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Madan
December 19, 2022
Sam: If I ‘cheat’ a little and extend the notion of an universe to more life-like characters, then Godfather would be the best example of a film series about an universe which also has characters with depth. Of course, part 3 was mediocre, needless to say.
I think that is the main reason many ‘universe’ films struggle to also create the space for emotional depth. Because so much time has to be expended on explaining the universe to the audience and making us understand it as if it was the normal world and buy into it. PS-1 could have been an opportunity to manage this balance but because Mani prioritized faithfulness to the book, there was too much plot to cover to, once again, leave enough time to get into the characters in greater depth.
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RK
December 19, 2022
@Madan: Thanks for the mention of Sparks in the comments. Had a great couple of hours of Sparks music. Music does wash the grime of daily life!
I first heard them when I was 19 or 20 & really loved Kimono because it had better production & frankly rocked. But now I love & appreciate the debut album’s sheer diversity even though objectively Kimono is the better album. Have to listen to their other albums at least of the classic era.
Your Landmark, Mumbai remarks triggered the memory of spending entire afternoons at Nungambakkam Landmark. Trying to fit in the books & albums with the money on hand was always a problem.
Many people here are lamenting the shift of films to OTT, but music seems to have completely shifted to online streaming, that too for most Indians, completely free, with nary a complaint.
As a great fan of female singers in rock, to me Annie Haslam right up there with Janis Joplin & Grace Slick.
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RK
December 19, 2022
@vijay: As someone with good taste, you probably knew what to expect from Ajith & Anirudh. Then why would you listen to it? The only valid reasoning would be if you listen to all the new releases. If that is so, no more explanations needed.
Because it would not be such a bad thing if somehow no more new music is created. The wealth of great unexplored music of the past is so huge that nobody can exhaust even the great ones in one particular genre. So why would anybody need to hear current crap unless one is a critic paid for it.
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Anand Raghavan
December 19, 2022
Just heard, surprised that Ghibran has composed this.
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tamil thanos
December 19, 2022
The reviews done by BR are solely his opinion. He tells whether a movie worked for him or not and what could have been better based on the information and knowledge at his disposal. He has given enough reasons in the review to justify why this version of Cameron is not working for him, which is totally understandable. It is pointless and childish to take offense at disagreement (and I swear we get one angry viewer every 6 months). If we can’t agree to disagree on something as simple as this, what are we going to do about much larger issues?
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kaizokukeshav
December 19, 2022
Cameron is somewhat like SS Rajamouli… more of a spectacle and less of a story. I also like how he occasionally brings up the most basic instinct as a story line that’s long forgotten by Hollywood. Take the rich-poor in Titanic, war mongerers in Avatar, good and bad robots in Terminator etc. One thing undeniable is how good the world he creates is. As of Avatar, I see better graphics in gaming industry now.. so the 2D is a skip.
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kaizokukeshav
December 19, 2022
@pankaj: I understand that you’re a fan to Nolan, Cameron etc but Hollywood is much much more beyond that. I suggest you to watch the IMDB top 250 movies and your view of critics will definitely change. BR is the best critic who can instantly tell the box-office stamina of any movie don’t even compare with the rest and he also good reviews to many mass movies in the past.
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abishekspeare
December 20, 2022
Didn’t go through all the comments here but man, what BR says, feels, wears and eats is up to him. He isn’t asking you to agree with him, or even read/view his reviews (he’s even kind enough to say “IF you like this review please subscribe”, lol). Why specifically come to someone’s blog and shit on them for presenting their view, when you could have spent that time to find a hundred others who give reviews you like? After all you do seem to live in your own bubble
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hari prasad
December 20, 2022
Agreed.
BR is just sharing his views and thoughts about movies and he’s not wanting us all to agree with him.
I never saw or heard BR baying for the blood of people that didn’t like Kaatru Veliyidai.
I don’t know why people often expect the reviewers to reflect their thoughts and get disappointed when the reviewer says something that’s contrary to what he thought of the movie.
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Madan
December 20, 2022
RK: Belated reply on your comment. As said to you on my blog, my PC was down yesterday and most of today but woke up in the evening.
“Had a great couple of hours of Sparks music. ” – Heh, so do I in fact!
“Have to listen to their other albums at least of the classic era.” – Do start out with Propaganda, which is basically a continuation of Kimono. It’s like they had written so many goodies that they couldn’t accommodate them all in Kimono.
“Your Landmark, Mumbai remarks triggered the memory of spending entire afternoons at Nungambakkam Landmark. ” – Have been there too, as well as the short lived Music World store. Don’t know if you’ve been to Discover The Book Shop. I don’t think it stocked albums but it did have a wonderful book collection and a great ambience too.
“but music seems to have completely shifted to online streaming, that too for most Indians, completely free, with nary a complaint.” – I do think the free aspect is a bad thing because it doesn’t get the artists a fair recompense for the hours we spend listening to their albums. But it was inevitable that this would come to pass once illegal downloading began. In India, specifically, the transition was even faster because our music industry has always been tied to the film industry itself and there was no serious concept of artwork or such to make the purchase attractive. And LPs were always niche in India; it was cassettes we bought and it’s too hard to make an attractive package for the tiny cassette. That’s also why the LP revival in India is way behind what it is in the West.
“As a great fan of female singers in rock, to me Annie Haslam right up there with Janis Joplin & Grace Slick.” – Technically (and maybe emotionally too, since I am a fan of melody in vocals) I would rate Annie higher than the latter two, but there’s no doubt about the sheer impact and influence of both Joplin and Slick. Also Ann Wilson and Stevie Nicks in the 70s. If you like R&B, then Minnie Riperton was a force of nature as well.
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Shankar
December 21, 2022
@madan, agree with your views on the state of our music industry and the tie to the film industry. However, I do think there is a benefit to this as well. Composers get paid as part of being part of a film, and so there is some compensation for their work, without them being dependent only on album sales or avenues related only to music. So while this state of affairs does reduce the need to produce artwork or make the purchase of music attractive, at least there is compensation for the work performed. That said, it’s not an ideal state, from an artist perspective. There is no incentive to push live music, live performances given that album sales are not at stake, and films can mix-match composers leaving individual composers, especially smaller ones, with not much leverage to establish themselves…
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Madan
December 21, 2022
Shankar: Agreed on both counts – composers get paid a fee by the producers but hand in hand there are now many more composers for fewer films so it’s a game with diminishing returns. The bigger problem, though, is it’s much harder to make it in the independent scene. There is a sort of revival now led by Youtube and festivals but it’s still more niche today than in the 90s when a song like Made in India was as popular as any of the film songs of that period.
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RK
December 21, 2022
@Madan: Annie Haslam is definitely the technically superior of the three. I was just comparing the best female rock singers that I know of. One drawback for Haslam is that her voice was not always the primary focus in Renaissance songs, unlike Janis. The other members of Renaissance are equally important whereas Janis mostly had a backing band of differing members, except for The Big Brother. The same issue affects Grace Slick too.
Though I have heard a few albums of Heart, the only song I can now remember is Venus. I cannot recall anything particularly spectacular about her, but I have to listen again.
Stevie Nicks is a one-trick pony, but what a glorious trick that was. RIP. She is the most pop-sounding voice of the lot and was part of, probably the best pop band of the 70s. Rumours has to be one of the perfect pop/ rock albums ever.
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Madan
December 21, 2022
Yeah, Annie being in a prog rock band and not being a musician or songwriter had to share track time with the other members. This is where Joni Mitchell, Kate Bush, Bjork, Fiona Apple could all structure the music around their voice because they were writing their own music.
“Though I have heard a few albums of Heart, the only song I can now remember is Venus. I cannot recall anything particularly spectacular about her,” – Oh, check out Barracuda and Mistral, especially the latter. Anyone who even sort of likes LZ (I am in that category – I like their STYLE but not the rambling nature of many of their songs) will likely enjoy it.
“Stevie Nicks is a one-trick pony, but what a glorious trick that was. RIP.” – Not sure if you mean she died or her voice (agree if the latter) but the FM member who recently died was Christine McVie. Stevie is alive which is unfortunate as that forces Lindsey to stay out of the band at her behest.
Stevie’s Rhiannon was incredible in the mid 70s. By even the early 80s, she could no longer sing it that way. Too much coke, I guess.
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Rocky
December 21, 2022
Done watching Avatar The way of water.
It is too long , and is a typical Masala Hollywood/ Bollywood movie.
The dialogues are so simplistic and full of shit, fuck.( I guess to attract younger audience ). One of the reasons that my daughters wanted to watch it was because it had a song by The weeknd at the end. The screenplay is so convenient. The bullets run out just in time, they never hit the heroes or their their children, and then it all comes down to fist fight like Sooryavanshi.
Picture mein “Machli merey Saathi” hai, “Hum saath saath hain” hai, “Athithi Tum kyon aaye” hai AND “Thugs of Pandora” hai.
If you can take a leap of faith for this movie then most certainly you should take a leap faith for a much more enjoyable RRR.
Kate Winslet is wasted , maybe she will have a bigger role in the next one.
Overall it was a great one time watch for me. Enjoyed it but probably will not be watching it again.
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Madan
December 24, 2022
Rocky: I whole heartedly agree with you that RRR is a more entertaining watch than this. pankaj and other pseudo snobs can chortle all they like, I don’t care. I say pseudo advised lying, because I have a lot of time for a film like 45 Years which is absolutely unglamorous and unhurried but rewards with a powerful finish. I just don’t get this dichotomy of trying to make out theme park movies as more than what they are and simultaneously dissing our masala movies. IMO a well made masala movie does offer more to emotionally invest in than a theme park movie. I don’t hold up RRR as the apotheosis of masala but you could never convince me that either of the Avatar movies are better than Aboorva Sagotharargal. No way!
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Madan
December 24, 2022
Read ‘I say pseudo advisedly’. F U predictive text!
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Rocky
December 24, 2022
Madan says- I just don’t get this dichotomy of trying to make out theme park movies as more than what they are and simultaneously dissing our masala movies. IMO a well made masala movie does offer more to emotionally invest in than a theme park movie.
Very well said Madan. 100 % agree with this.
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anonymousviolin20
December 25, 2022
Got to watch the first one one my 9th bday and the second one on my 22nd. Might as well start using these movies as life landmarks lol.
But I gotta hand it to James Cameron, he pulled all of the stops on the effects. I was super bored during the first half our intro part, but as soon as they got to the water area and underwater shots, I was hooked.
Got bored once again towards the overly drawn out climax portion, but overall, it was worth a watch for the technicalities alone. I just can’t help but wonder if it was impossible to make a shorter and less generic movie than the one we got.
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KayKay
December 25, 2022
“I just don’t get this dichotomy of trying to make out theme park movies as more than what they are and simultaneously dissing our masala movies”
There is a cultural element to this, Madan. For someone who’s lived outside India all his life, watches Indian movies sporadically, I’d say many Indian Masala Movies can appear excessively schmaltzy, rambling and overwrought. Conversely I understand those who mainly catch the odd Hollywood Blockbuster now and then just find them to be empty, soulless, effects-laden theme park rides.
For me personally, Shankar in Tamil and Rajamouli in Telugu at their peak seem to bridge this divide well.
But yeah, I’m also not down with putting down one in favor of the other. Different Strokes as they say…
In fact, I’d say Avatar 2 is probably the closest a James Cameron comes to “Indian Masala”. Unlike much of Hollywood these days, Cameron hews to a charmingly retro depiction of the “traditional” family. Sully the Father, is the Protector (and this is referenced a few times in the dialogue), Neytiri the Mother, is the nurturer (although she gets to be pretty bad-ass in the climax). One son is clearly Jake’s favorite, while the other rebellious one struggles to be noticed, but then wins his father’s love and respect through a heroic act. A tragedy finally rouses Jake from his passivity to take on Quaritch. Quaritch displays some humanity when his own son is put under the knife, and later the son himself cannot bring himself to let his father die. The Sully’s are looked upon with suspicion by the Sea Dwelling Na’avi but later win their respect and acceptance. A boy bonds with a whale…
As I mentioned the above to some of my friends who mostly only watch Indian movies and were nit-picking on Avatar 2, I said;
Swap out the English dialogue for Hindi or any regional language, toss out the sci-fi/fantasy elements(which let’s face it, most Indian Audiences have only sporadically embraced, especially when not rooted in their own Mythology), ditch the Eco Conservation/Tree Hugger Stuff (which anyway has always been more of a Western thing), exchange the whale for an Elephant maybe (for those “Haathi Mere Saathi”or “Annai Or Aalayam” vibes), throw in 3 songs and crank up the melodrama by 5 decibels while maintaining the same level of dazzling cinematic craft, and Avataram 2 : Thanniyin Paathai would easily make your 2022 Top 5:-)
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Madan
December 25, 2022
“There is a cultural element to this, Madan. For someone who’s lived outside India all his life, watches Indian movies sporadically, I’d say many Indian Masala Movies can appear excessively schmaltzy, rambling and overwrought.” – Oh, totally, so if a Westerner said they couldn’t digest an Indian masala movie, I wouldn’t blame them for it. But in this case, since pankaj has an Indian-sounding name….
I am not sure that for me, personally, adding songs and swapping in Hindi or regional language dialogues would do the trick in case of Avatar 2. I think the lack of brevity was a big issue for me (and frankly, I have pointed this out in the case of some of the big budget Indian masala vehicles too of more recent vintage – the Agneepath remake being one of the biggest offenders). I just don’t fancy stretching out a moment like an elastic (presumably done to produce nice insta reels of the film?) and thus padding up what can be a 2 hour film into 3 hours. If Avatar 2 was made the old Hollywood way, it would be much closer to 2 than 3 hours and I would like it a lot more. As it stands, it’s strictly a one time watch.
And I wrote about it in more detail on my blog, but it felt more like a Sully family movie. The original was slavishly faithful to the sci fi fantasy template but at least that produced reliably entertaining moments. This was like it was trying to be immersive but without the dialogues or emotions to make it worth it.
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therag
December 26, 2022
I don’t know if it was the movie’s fault or the anhedonia that I suspect I have, but I came out of this movie with a big “eh” (sort of). I felt like Gru’s mom in “Despicable Me” who is astounded when her not-yet-teenager sets fly an actual rocket, gasps in awe….and then goes “eh”.
The world is amazing, the ocean and the animals (or whatever) are amazing, that action scene with the Tuluk and the ship is pretty nice I guess but…..eh.
The graphics in this movie is outstanding, I’d be very interested in the Computer Graphics behind this film and the improvements between 2009 and 2022 that made all the water CG possible.
But the one moment that made my jaw truly drop was when I saw Kate Winslet’s name go by in the credits. Never would I have guessed that the chieftain’s Pondatti was Kate Winslet. Titanic la avalo…Hamsama kaamchitu inga Cameron ipdi pannitaare.
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Ashwin Kumar
December 27, 2022
Thoughts/ feelings as I watched this yesterday…
Due respect to the immense hardwork and technology behind this – bringing something like this to the big screen
Spoilers
Oh this scene is dazzling. Let me take in and relish the 3D…
Targeted audience young teens? ( repetitive use of bro, cuz …)
National geographic/ discovery channel on steroids
A bit of T2, a bit if Abyss, some aliens and Titanic
A little bit of Jaws.
When will be movie end
Amrita!! The nectar of immortality:-) Motives of humans on Pandora all over the place and convoluted
Nothing much stayed after the movie. One big theme park ride indeed.
The most visually stunning and at the same time gripping and thrilling movie for me was the Dune in recent times . And the background score was awesome
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therag
December 27, 2022
@Ashwin Kumar, agreed about Dune. For all the talk about Cameron’s action prowess, the set pieces in Avatar 2 were merely decent. Dune was better in every aspect and is very rewatchable.
I can understand a Denis Villeneuve spending years to make Dune, Mani doing it for PS, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what makes Cameron want to spend the rest of his career on Avatar.
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vijay
December 27, 2022
“but I can’t for the life of me figure out what makes Cameron want to spend the rest of his career on Avatar.”
the same thing that makes Kamal want to make Vikram 2, Indian 2 , Vikram 3, etc..
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Satya
December 27, 2022
“But the one moment that made my jaw truly drop was when I saw Kate Winslet’s name go by in the credits.”
Amen. Not only her character feels underwritten, but I frankly didn’t recognize her voice until the end credits rolled.
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Rambo
December 28, 2022
Caught up with this maaaassssive comment thread finally! I used to find that BR is not 100% consistent when it comes to dishing out praise or criticism. And that used to be jarring (how can he praise things in a terrible Vijay film while criticizing things in a good non-masala film). Not unlike Pankaj in a way – but obviously no where near as upset as he seems to be. But then I realised that BR is usually criticising against expectations as well – rather than as an absolute. There is a different scale in use for different kinds of films. A Vijay film is designed to be “mass” masala while a Vikram is just a masala film and a Visaranai is a serious film. The critique is usually on whether they set out to achieve what those films have been designed to achieve. Otherwise you can never praise a theme-park/masala movie and only praise the films that are award worthy – which is pointless. Once I understood that, it was less disconcerting to read his differing ways of looking at different films. Having said all that, there are so many reviews on Avatar 2 that say the same thing that BR has said – a great technical film with a weak/terrible plot. So not sure what the controversy is. Pretty much the exact same criticism levelled at Avatar 1 which I found so unengaging that I haven’t scrambled to watch A 2 even after all these years. Aiming to see it next week in IMAX for the effects but not really looking fwd to it.
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Raghu Narayanan
December 29, 2022
Spoilers ahead…!!!
Caught up with the film today and, I sincerely hope that there is no Avatar 3!!! Not at least the continuation of this….whatever it was…!
First off, why are Forest People Blue, and Sea people Greeeen!!?? I mean would anyone have objected to Sea clans being blue as well?? Was it so complex a point to ponder?
It was so much a regurgitation of what we have seen in so many movies…So much of what happens in the movie is out of synch with even the very world that Cameron is looking to create.
Typical American family with one responsible kid and one ‘always getting into trouble’ kid who always gets into trouble and the responsible kid gets hurt/dies trying to save the bad boy….regurgitation!
Over-zealous kids trying to act beyond their age get caught by the enemy and taken hostage…regurgitation!
All children born and brought up in the Na’vi way of life but talk and behave like modern day American teens…how?
All of this special effects for one family??
Then again, the tolkun hunter killing those beasts for some oil which has anti-aging effects…same thing that whales were killed for in the days before electricity- for their blubber to make oil for lamps…old wine in old bottle..!!!
Language used by the American general…’hostiles’ and ‘raiding parties’…regurgitated from the Wild West movies..
Watched it on 3D as did not get IMAX tickets (must have done some good somewhere to have saved on the ticket cost!) and felt, in so many instances that I was watching in VR mode! In many scenes there was this POV camera work that was quite irritating with either some objects or some character in the foreground obstructing the view. Also it kept switching from the POV view to regular view and that was irritating too…and then the subtitles kept popping up all across the screen…unusual and irritating again!
In the final climax fight (oh so new!) where did the army of Sea clans disappear all of a sudden? Was their shift timings over? I mean, they came to fight because the daughter of the Chief of the Sea Clan was taken hostage (never seen before, no?), but they leave her behind and disappear….or they were fighting somewhere but the camera was focusing on the one family..?
Finally, and this goes for Avatar 1 too, it needs a good American (read White) to save the Na’vi and others from the invaders…because the Na’vi can’t do it by themselves you see! Even the term Na’vi is coming too close to Native, no? Does not take a lot of imagination to morph it…
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Raghu Narayanan
December 29, 2022
Okay, piling on from where I left off yesterday, was a bit sleepy to continue further 🙂
This whole Avatar concept seems, to me, to be Cameron re-imagining American history and trying to give a different spin to it. Think about this now….
Columbus set off in search of some new land and he ended up reaching the shores of America. Soon the French and British followed. Then there was large scale slaughter of the native tribes and finally their subjugation. This is the gist of what we know as American history. From what we are told, the Native American’s way of life had respect for nature, he took only what he needed and he revered nature as God. In other words, they lived a life of ‘Balance’. In came the Europeans and after a few centuries of large scale fighting and massacre, they established their rule over the land. The European way of life was diametrically opposite to that of the Native American tribes. The European believed in exploiting Nature for the ‘advancement’ of the human race. This way of life upset the cart of ‘Balance’ and has brought us to where we are today.
Looks like, with Avatar, Cameron is trying to re-imagine American history and ask a big ‘what-if’ question. ‘What if the Native American tribes had been strong enough to defeat and chase off the invading Europeans?’. This must have seemed a very tempting premise to start off a movie franchise on, and maybe, so he did. But wait, you are trying to re-tell American history by showing that the Europeans are actually the villains and you then have to sell it back to the children of the same European settlers, and want to make a Billion out of it? How is that possible? And how can you show that this re-telling is happening here on Planet Earth? Which part of the Earth are you going to show as heretofore uninhabited? And what will be the color of those people who inhabit that part of the Earth? Too complicated! So, yes it’s some far off planet and some sort of mixed up alien species. Now, you can play with their colors! Still, there is the issue of these ‘undeveloped’ people fighting off modern humans…how to solve that! Lo and behold! One of these human will join them and lead them in their fight against his own! What an idea, sirji!
And Cameron had the gall to name this guy as Avatar! Jesus perhaps!
Wait, need to puke…am feeling sick now 🙂
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ravenus1
December 29, 2022
“If Avatar 2 was made the old Hollywood way, it would be much closer to 2 than 3 hours and I would like it a lot more. ”
Which old Hollywood way, Madan? A number of the huge Hollywood productions in the 50’s and 60’s, especially after the success of The Ten Commandments, neared and even crossed the 3 hour mark.
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Madan
December 29, 2022
ravenus:Not THAT old. Meant 80s/90s Hollywood, since that’s when these kind of VFX driven blockbusters began to dominate.
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Bunny
January 1, 2023
@Pankaj: Don’t worry Pankaj. It’s already a heresy/anti-national etc. to not like certain films in naya Hindustan. Earlier conformity to mainstream Hollywood meant high social status but soon it will be more than that to a point where contrarians (or whatever term you wish you use) will be purged or sent to re-integration camps. Heil Content! Heil Conformity! Big Brother is watching us.
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Madan
January 1, 2023
Bunny: Oh, so Pankaj has a bunny too. Can I ask what’s the charge on this shiny new victim card you’ve gotten yourself? No, seriously, why don’t you celebrate some actually good Hollywood like Knives Out instead of getting so upset about what people say about Avatar? And like someone said upthread, go check out the international reviews since everyone is a bhakt in India according to you – it isn’t even contrarian to suggest Avatar 2 is a great visual fest let down by a dull script.
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KayKay
January 1, 2023
“From what we are told, the Native American’s way of life had respect for nature, he took only what he needed and he revered nature as God”
While I don’t dispute the oppressive and devastating nature of Colonialism, it’s equally important not to resort to “Children Of The Earth Mother”-style romanticism when talking about the Native Americans. They indulged in plenty of bloody tribal warfare among themselves as well. While the Lakota Sioux were generally considered peaceful, the Comanche and Apache had a taste for war, raping and pillaging on par with the Pale Faces.
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KayKay
January 1, 2023
“First off, why are Forest People Blue, and Sea people Greeeen”
Same reason why you give actors playing a double role different clothing/hair color/facial hair etc etc
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Bunny
January 1, 2023
Mr Madan, thank you for proving my point. No I don’t assume every Indian to be a Bhakt. As for Bhakts, most of them are open to criticism. It’s woke liberals like you who cannot even take criticism of Avengers, RRR etc. and get in a moral outrage if anybody refuses to conform to your beliefs. Don’t get offended by my comments because people like you control the world. Bhakts or ordinary people like me don’t matter. So either way, you win.
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Madan
January 1, 2023
I can’t take criticism of Avengers, lol? You must have missed the ample references to theme park in this comments section. Actually it’s not even clear to me what you’re trying to say or what your grouse is. On the internet, it helps to be unambiguous if you want to be understood.
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Madan
January 1, 2023
Help me, folks, for I am super confused now. I thought RRR was Sanghi propaganda and liking it too much was suspect in liberal circles. Now I am told woke liberals like myself can’t take criticism of it. Is it my fault that I just watch a film to be temporarily rid of these nonsense political flame wars? And please don’t patronize me with a lecture about the importance of politics. Politics is important, yes, but name calling on political issues on social media is a complete time sink. I am not above it but I do it knowing this fact, not pretending I am performing a service for humanity.
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Raghu Narayanan
January 1, 2023
“While I don’t dispute the oppressive and devastating nature of Colonialism, it’s equally important not to resort to “Children Of The Earth Mother”-style romanticism when talking about the Native Americans.”
I fully agree that we humans will probably be, by far, the most violent and barbaric of species on this planet and Native American tribes must be no exception to this. They earned the victim tag collectively only after the invasion by the colonialists, prior to which they would have fought amongst themselves. And such violence and fighting must be a common feature of the history of all races across the planet as well. Be that as it may, I could only cover in my comment that aspect of the Native American life which, to my imagination, Cameron seems to be referring to in the Avatar series. So leaving out references to violence intrinsic to Native American tribes for the sake of staying relevant to the movie’s context should not, hopefully, lead to construing that I am on the ‘side’ of silly romantic views of them being “Children of the Earth Mother”, which by itself is a convenient narrative set by, in my opinion, the early Hollywood movies in order to commercially milk the victim card and does not exist in reality.
“Same reason why you give actors playing a double role different clothing/hair color/facial hair etc etc”
Yeah, right!? I totally agree again that it is just as brainless and illogical, and then for the exact opposite of reasons! Especially as the Forest people and Sea clans are not doubles, and hence do not need to be shown different anyways, no? It seemed to me like a waste of imagination, which could have got channelized to improve the content. It almost seems as an acceptance that introducing the Sea clans was an after-thought post the first installment of Avatar, and there was this compulsion to differentiate the two ‘peoples’ in as many ways as possible. In my books, though, the modified arms and tails would have been just as sufficient 🙂
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Rohit Sathish Nair
January 3, 2023
Has James Cameron made any mention of who or which entity will take over the Avatar series after his death? To me, that seems to be the interesting part, all the more so given the similarities that at least this movie has with George Lucas-era Star Wars. Both of them have similar sources of inspiration, and both these groups of films are essentially space Westerns/war films loaded with anti-imperialism.
There’s something very old-fashioned about aspects of the movie: the score (by Simon Franglen who also composed the score for Brahmastra – that said, the score is too obvious), about how scenes start and end, and even the reference points for this particular movie (Quaritch quotes “The Wizard of Oz”, and though I haven’t watched “Apocalypse Now” in order to correctly map the visual and conceptual references, I can’t shake off the feeling that it could be a possible influence too)
Critics’ gripes about writing and story are valid, but my question is the opposite: given that the word of mouth and publicity for the movie is mostly centered on its “visuals” and “theatre-watching experience”, could the movies move closer to the idea of “spectacle divorced from drama and storytelling”? Will a post-Cameron “Avatar” series do more of this often (for “genericness” and box-office benefits), or is Cameron’s feeling for these themes so strong that they will always be a part of the “Avatar” DNA?
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