Avatar - James Cameron Returns! (Spoilers in thread, obviously!)

:::sigh:::

My comments were about the production, not just the film. The film is a small aspect of the production as a whole (including James Cameron who is also in the thread's topic).

But yeah, it's silly for me to keep expressing to people here my personal ideologies as a means of defining why or how I am discerning Cameron's intentions.

Yes, but the film is a very big aspect, in my opinion. It is the result of that whole production. It is the result of the process. It's the finished product that all of that was leading up to. So, it'll be interesting to see if your impression of the film as a film and as a finished product is the same or different from your particular views of the "process".
 
I don't accept that. It's not art that conforms to your notions of ethical purity, but it is still art. Wether or not it's good or bad art is in the eye of the beholder. You don't know what was in Orson's heart when he made Citizen Kane any more than I do. For all I know he only went to Hollywood to sleep with starlets. It doesn't matter. What matters is the end result at the end of the day. Casablanca and Citizen Kane are both great works of art that routinely make top ten lists.

I think Orson has been well-documented regarding his intentions for filming Citizen Kane the way he did.

And "good art or bad art"? Really?

"That's some bad love you got there!"

You're talking again about whether or not an audience liked a piece of art, not whether or not it influenced or enlightened them.

I can't speak to whether or not Avatar is a great piece of art (no one can, that's like saying you know whether or not someone has a great love). If it enlightens, informs or influences the human condition, it will be a great work of art. If it just makes a bunch of money and looks cool, then it is what it is.

(a small disclaimer I should mention is that I generally have to divide the creative artists from the performance artists in these kinds of debates as it's the performance's artist's position to entertain, not necessarily to enlighten or inform. Film is probably the most complex "art form" to debate in this regard as it involves a mish mash of performance and creative arts, so typically everything relies on the director's and writer's initial intentions but is not necessarily limited to those intentions. E.g. a film can fail miserably as a piece of creative art while succeed as a piece of performance art and vice versa).
 
And "good art or bad art"? Really?

"That's some bad love you got there!"

Art and love are not equivalent things. Art is both a physical object and an expression of an idea. Love is an emotional state of feeling toward another person or thing. It is not a physical item.
 
Art and love are not equivalent things. Art is both a physical object and an expression of an idea. Love is an emotional state of feeling toward another person or thing. It is not a physical item.

Again, different schools of thought. I believe art and love both exist independently of the self.

I write way too much in absolutes. But I think if you have a perspective that is absolute it's difficult not to express it in, ya know, absolutes.

But my ideas of love and art are incapable of being the "right" ideas. No matter how close a person feels they may exist to perfect enlightenment, they can never really be truly enlightened as everything we know and understand has to pass through the fleshy ball between our ears before it's interpreted, right?

So I believe absolutely in my positions, but I in no way believe that my position can possibly be the correct one.
 
Again, different schools of thought. I believe art and love both exist independently of the self.

I have never seen a physical piece of love. I have seen a physical piece of art. Your sentence "that's some bad love you got there" makes no sense because love can't ever be a physical thing, while art is. But we're getting into semantics.
 
Dude, just go see the movie. I'll BUY you tickets just so you can see the movie and actually have an opinion on anything else than just having an opinion about having an opinion.
 
Can you buy my ticket, Rodney? I've got to get the "Transylmania" out of my head.

Sounds like you need THERAPY to get over that movie.

I'm gonna go see it at the IMAX on Monday with Mark Harris. Trying to get other people to come along for the show. Couple people I've talked to actually are interested in going to see it again. One of them didn't even see the 3D version so I extolled the virtues of the 3D especially since it as used so well as more of an aid to the imagery to add depth, rather than just a cheesy gimmick. So interest is piqued...
 
Sounds like you need THERAPY to get over that movie.

I'm gonna go see it at the IMAX on Monday with Mark Harris. Trying to get other people to come along for the show. Couple people I've talked to actually are interested in going to see it again. One of them didn't even see the 3D version so I extolled the virtues of the 3D especially since it as used so well as more of an aid to the imagery to add depth, rather than just a cheesy gimmick. So interest is piqued...


Yeah…? And…? You gonna buy my ticket or what?
 
God that was an awful line

I loved that line. A little over-the-top, but good over-the-top.

How did the Wayne Douglas Barlowe biological design impress people? Anyone here a fan of his earlier work?

I'm not sure what Barlowe specifically designed, as I haven't picked up the Avatar art book yet, but I've been a huge fan of Wayne Barlowe's stuff since I was first getting into science fiction and fantasy as a wee young lad.

I pretty much liked all the art and design of the film, so I suppose I will probably dig whatever Barlowe ended up designing once I learn more about what he was responsible for creating.

Sad Max, is it true that Cameron wanted no one else to design the Thanator? I've heard that he kept that one for himself to design as it was his favorite Pandoran creature.
 
You can recognize Barlowe's stuff pretty well...I think. Chest-nostrils, protruding balance organs, thoracic brain cases, that sort of stuff. I guess you're hip to Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials, Expedition, and his work for Star Wars.

I wasn't on the creature end of things, so I don't know about the Thanator's design evolution.
 
Not necessarily. Perhaps Earth's once-verdant jujubee fields lie fallow, and part of Pandora's appeal is its vast harvestable quantity of giant wild blue jujubees.
 
Dude, just go see the movie. I'll BUY you tickets just so you can see the movie and actually have an opinion on anything else than just having an opinion about having an opinion.

LOL

Nah, I'm going to buy tickets for me and my girl and we're going to see it IMAX on Navy Pier. In the new year. I'm absolutely going to see it. Looks friggin AMAZING, are you kidding me? ;)

I just don't want to support its marketing and potentially its director's intentions by going to see it in its first few weeks of release, but no way in f&*$town am I going to miss a friggin 3D sci-fi epic done by one of the greatest directors of our time.

It's a friggin popcorn movie. The hell I care about artistry? It's there to entertain, and I'm sure it will! :D
 
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