The Art of Plagerism

I will not attempt here to persuade you that movie makers are getting desperate for good stories and stealing ideas from other places. I am perfectly confident that they try their best to come up with original plot-lines and premises... Okay, I'm fibbing. I finally saw the "critically-acclaimed" Avatar last night. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the movie. I thought the graphics were incredibly cool, and the action scenes and climactic elements were very exciting and intensely fun to watch. However, I have my complaints.

I felt, before I ever saw the movie, that I didn't need to see the movie because I'd already seen Disney's Pocohontas (Not to mention Fern Gully, Dances With Wolves, etc.) I felt like the story lines sounded so similar that it was pointless to see the newest take on it. Of course, I conceded and decided to see it as I was interested to see what all the hype was about... I will admit, I truly enjoyed myself.

The only problem is that when I watch a movie, I judge based on many aspects. I usually give about 50 percent of my opinion to the story and how well crafted it is, and the other 50 is divided respectively among cinematography, acting, scripting, etc. The latter elements of the movie were, to say the least, incredible. (Even though I've never liked Weaver's acting, and even in this film, it left something to be desired...) I just felt that the story itself was very predicatble and a little hackneyed. I did appreciat Cameron's "flare" that he added, but overall, the story was a little blah. Add to that the awkward hokeyness of the chanting, swaying, communal tree cult with glowing bums, and we can say there were some somewhat lame parts as well. (Really? Sigourney Weaver died anyway? No way! Never saw that coming!)

Again, don't get me wrong. If I want to watch a god action movie with awesome effects, I'm all over this movie. But let's sum up my feelings on the plot-line with this link...

I also think Avatar was a stupid name for the movie... especially being that M. Night Shamyalan's new Avatar: The Last Airbender movie is coming out soon! Blah!