Obtaining the Unobtainium
I didn’t really like Avatar. I saw it in 3D. It’s a pretty movie, I loved the mishmash of ‘Earth’ beasts they threw into the fray. The world itself looked great. It looked like a video game, complete with free-runnable terrain, rest areas/checkpoints and scenery for boss battles.
As a movie, it made me feel like I was an idiot. The amount of random scenes used to convey the message of “OMGZ RENEMBER DIS FOR LATER RITE? ETS REVELANT TO TEH ENDING…. KINDA” to the viewer, was borderline patronising. Specific scenes aside, it felt like the movie was just a visual showcase with story as an afterthought.
Funnily enough, I’ve found most people who adore the movie and applaud its MIGHTY aethetic prowess, agree with my thoughts(obviously not with the same intense disgust) regarding movie itself. In my unforgiving opinion, no amount of graphically enhanced polish can cover up the tightly coiled piles of eye-rolling cliches in that movie, but, if you can suspend disbelief and become THAT astounded to let everything else slide, congratulations. You are probably a less jaded person and happier movie patron than I am. I tend to overlook the ‘pretties’ and in no way think they can save a movie or video game from its lack of substance, but I can see how people do. Michelle Rodriguez DID have a singlet that was ripped at the cleavage. No reason why, no visible struggle where said garment’s structural integrity could have been compromised. Military-grade, all-purpose, pilot-standard, slightly-torn-at-boobs white singlet. I noticed that straight away, but only mentioned it mid-furious rant this morning.
I mean, really… “Unobtainium“? I think “Plot Item somewhat relevant for now, but not so much later, when we forget why they’re invading at all” didn’t fit the dialogue as well, though thinking about it a little more, it might have been fine. Just fine.
Hahahahahaha I completely forgot about the Unobtainium! Argh, how could I forget that, because that made me cringe and then shit my pants — this I should probably remember because I made a mess and was asked to leave.
I think you got it right early on:
The world itself was made to be a video game. Movies like this (and every other ‘kid’ movie that is made these days) is created purely for the intent of making money on the video game and mass generated toys.
So I mean, if they went to all that work of creating those 3D models, they might as well go File > Export > Generic Video Game.
I mean, ‘unobtainium’ should translate well to the 8 and under market who’ll be playing these shitty puzzle games with the occasional compulsory racing / adventure mini games.
Have you ever noticed that none of these ‘movie games’ have proper multiplayer modes? Because that would take time and money, and why spend more money than you have to when you’re just trying to wring the last drops of water from the dirty towel they call an industry.
Even fucking Up has a video game. What the fuck? It was a cute movie, but there’s no game potential there, unless you just want to strap character faces onto Super Mario Brothers 2.