Avatar: The Way of Water is visually stunning. It’s also a terribly written mess of plot holes, cliches and contrivances. If this is the best cinema has to offer, then what’s the point?
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*Timestamps!*
Intro – O Brave New World: 00:00 – 14:15
Recap – Dances With Smurfs: 14:16 – 16:26
Bad Avatard Defences: 16:27 – 23:14
Subscribe to The Movie Cynic: 23:15 – 24:02
Back to Pandora: 24:03 – 31:11
Somehow, Quaritch Returned: 31:12 – 36:07
But Muh Themes: 36:08 – 44:57
A Kidnapping: 44:58 – 50:33
Quaritch & Spider: 50:34 – 59:20
The Sea Smurfs: 59:21 – 01:06:11
Wonderlust: 01:06:12 – 01:11:42
Riding the Fauna: 01:11:43 – 01:14:12
Phase 4 Writing: 01:14:13 – 01:17:03
Teen Drama – 01:17:04 – 01:24:10
Ellen Ripley Has Epilepsy: 01:24:11 – 01:29:16
James Cameron’s Writers’ Room: 01:29:17 – 01:34:40
Convenient Whaling Ship: 01:34:41 – 01:40:58
Something About Whales: 01:40:59 – 01:43:20
Of Spider: 01:43:21 – 01:50:09
Dances With Whales: 01:50:10 – 02:01:05
Even More Whales: 02:01:06 – 02:06:52
The Soundtrack Sucks: 02:06:53 – 02:10:57
Anti-Ageing Whale Goo: 02:10:58 – 02:17:30
The Smurfs Go to War: 02:17:31 – 02:23:05
All Out War: 02:23:06 – 02:40:00
Somebody Dies: 02:40:01 – 02:46:35
Inane Action: 02:46:36 – 03:04:31
Happily Ever After: 03:04:32 – 03:10:10
Outro – The Feelies: 03:10:11 – 03:26:56
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Confucius said, "I have never met a person who loved virtue as much as he loved physical beauty."
Analects 9.18
Confucius said, "The gentleman makes friends by way of his interest and his education in the arts and in culture. He finds support from his friends in the cultivation of his humanity."
Analects 12.24
If you like philosophy I think Confucius is a great addition. His influence on Western thought is massive.
My friend and I paid to see all 192 minutes of this in 3D and although it was beautiful to look at, the plot felt like a clumsy amalgamation of James Cameron's two previous feature films, Avatar 1 & Titanic. When the main characters buried the dead son at sea, I whispered "Jack I'll never let go" to my friend and it made him crack up.
WOW!!!!!!!!! I don't even know the words to describe NOT ONLY how accurate you are with this CRAP FILM but, also this CRAP SOCIETY!!! I SALUTE YOU, SIR!!!!!
so you're saying, james cameron jerking off on and on is a lovely visual? lol
"The question was never the control of the spread of a virus.. the question was what if anything gives them the right to do this." UHHHHHHH I THINK YOU ANSWERED YOUR OWN QUESTION THERE BRUV. HAVE FUN WITH BIRD FLU BTW!
I was locked up when Avatar was in theatre. I remember being excited to talk to my GF the day after she saw it, wanting to know how AWESOME it was. After all, THIS was the director who gave us T2 and Aliens. She fell asleep in the theatre. I said, " WHAT?! HOW!!" Dozy bitch! But then I DID see it when it dropped on DVD…. and I agree with Platoon 100%. The CG wasn't convincing, the fauna of the world didn't make sense relative to the planet, the characters I could not name one. Everything seemed contrived. I mean, every creature had too many eyes or legs if not for the simple reason to be alien. What made me turn it off was one-note evil army bad man and his coffee cup at the end. And it's not like I didn't know how the movie would end. It's just that I didn't care anymore.
Granted I haven't seen Avatar 2… but you introduce the beads as a device to inform the audience of Jake's children… and then you act as if the beads are meant to reintroduce us to Pandora as a whole. Forgive me, but I believe the children of the protagonist are quite different from AN ENTIRE PLANET? Or am I to believe you place the same narrative importance on Jake's children as the planet itself? Do you think children = planet? I don't understand, man. Maybe I should just stick to falling asleep to your videos cuz that's all they're good for, if I actually try to listen to your logic I lose my goddamn mind.
You prove, once again, that you are an absolute ACE! Truly masterful work, as always. Thank you 👍🙏
Glad I wasn't alone in at least not being impressed with the first avatar. I didn't hate it just because it left no impression whatsoever. I never saw it again and had no desire to.
I thought the reference to Huxley was brilliant, especially as a board certified psychiatrist. Incredibly THOUGHTFUL.
"Trans inclusive young Adolf Hitler movie" bro wtf are you talking about and can I get what you're smoking?
I will happily watch a 10 hour review from Little Platoon, before I watch 15 minutes of something he reviews (unless I’ve already seen it).
I thought SMILE was the last fun film I've seen.
Chip Hazard was awesome, the real one. That’s said the colonel was probably my favorite “character” from the first movie
I'm still hung up on how they use their built in USB cable, to plug into animals, who all also coincidentally evolved compatible hardware.
You know, "I left my brain at the door" is usually used for silly action films, like Jean Claude Van Damme movies. This phrase does not imply an actual permanent lobotomy.
If there's one thing that you and James Cameron have in common is the love for unnecessary lengths………………
I'm inclined to think themes, messages, and 'deeper points' are more likely to harm a story. What was the 'theme' of the original jurassic park? Typical dangers of science, frankenstein trope? That wasn't really the point. The point of the movie was seeing a bunch of modern people trying to survive and escape from dinosaurs. Stephen King made a similar point within the book of IT itself. Creative writers in english courses trying to say something important instead of just being entertaining.
I guess the question comes up of the difference between genuinely well written entertainment, and huxleyian spectacle. I think there is a real difference but it would take a lot of talking to define it.
Sooooo … Once upon a time I randomly bumped on a video made by a drunken Scottish guy (Drinker). I liked it a great lot so through him I watched a MAuler vid. I loved it and I might have watched each of his long format critiques at least 4 times. I watched Open bars and EFAPs and there you are sir … among all those people I like. So I gave your videos a try, and after this, I think I'm in love. The way you intertwine classic philosophy with critiquing modern cinema is amazing. It was thought provoking, it was funny, it was (by my meaningless standards) excellent!
Keep up the good work ! Cheers !
Why does humanity even need Immortality Brain Goo when they can ALREADY simply install themselves into new bodies as much as the like? You know, the whole NAME OF THE FILM JAMES FFS
That discussion on making a world feel lived in and full of "wanderlust" Vs a theme park arranged for the viewer's "wonderlust" is why I bounced off Skyrim hard. Every time you visit a settlement for the first time, you get shown a pre-scripted scene. These are meant to be more immersive ways of showing quests to the player, but it gets very old very quickly. It really made me feel that the inhabitants of this world were just actors hiding around corners waiting for the player to appear before putting on a little skit for our sake.
So in an attempt to feel more immersive, the game wound up feeling less so. And the more I looked, the more I could see the artificiality of the world's design… not just that their were more generic bandits in a single dungeon than the entire population of hte nearby "city," x200 for all the dungeons in the world, but that 99% of the dungeons are just linear hallways that either loop back in on themselves or end with a secret back exit… after you kill the obligatory boss and loot the obligatory boss chest. None of these spaces ever felt lived in. None of them ever felt like organic places within the setting Vs just an artificially designed video game dungeon.
The entire world just felt like it was made out of dungeons for the player to explore and actors putting on skits to lead the player into said dungeons. I know, I know, it's a fucking game so OF COURSE that's what it is… but Skyrim wanted to be "immersive" and this all just spoiled that illusion for me. The game is supposed to trick me into thinking the play is real, not show me the wires holding up the puppets an the people scurrying around backstage.
My TL:DR is that Skyrim just never felt like a lived in world for me Vs a stage play/amusement park arranged for the player's sole benefit. The game seems split between trying to be immersive yet also can't help itself from pandering to the player's convenience/power fantasy too much that I couldn't help but notice the curtain AND the people behind it. I wasn't getting lost in the game world so much as seeing the game systems that the developers had designed. It was a world of wonderlust unable to convince me there was any wanderlust present.
There! I just watched ALL 3 and half hours and might I say…. BRAVISIMO BELLO! Fan-fucking-tasting work. LIKED & SUB'D. And now I will save a $50 outing to the theatre.
I’m actually really surprised you never bring up “Free Willy” more as everything from the antagonist to the story of a boy befriending a whale, because he’s an outcast from society, while learning about a different culture of seafaring people.
Only movie in my knowledge, and actually went hard on whaling and showcasing killer whales positively.
There might of been an animated movie, but I can’t remember the name
It really is just spot on stealing from the 80s and 90s at this point
Another thing I have to ask. When one tries to say that unnecessary cruelty against animals indicates psychopathy, and specifically in the context of whaling… can someone please define “unnecessary” for me? The suffering endured by every whale is necessary in order to kill it and harvest it. Even industrial hunting of whales has a necessary element as its being done to provide resources to others. It’s not done for sport or for enjoyment. So the entire “unnecessary cruelty” argument goes out the window, doesn’t it?
Brilliant comparisons. Very well done. Thank you. Watched it twice from begining to end.
It looked good but that was it. It was predictable, repeating and veeeery long.
Oh boy, i make a Statement on my opinion now.
I liked the the first Avatar Movie actually, not for the surface level stuff of the meta like visuals, also not for the slightly less surface level analysis of nature good human bad because that is nothing but silly and for sure not because i like the blue monkey that live in a tree, i like it mainly for two reasons.
1. i am a weapons enthusiast and because of that i like military stuff and i think if you blend out the meta view i can enjoy that in this movie more than most actual war movies.
the second reason, the main reason, is that it provides me with a metric ton of reasons to argue that our modern society is like a herd of cattle that gets pushed in the direction corporations want it to go and they actually manage to make them think it is their own will.
the way i see it, the movie reflects perfectly the problems of our world and exactly how not to handle them.
a few big words as an oversight, Corpocracy, Elitism, Greed, Corruption, these are the main problems i see in our society and it is in the world of the Movie Avatar that we see the effects of these things in the extreme.
a single mega corporate conglomerate basically controlls the the human race, earth is Dying because it is so overpopulated that not enough energy, food or water can be produced, colonies on moon and mars had to be made to expand living space and the only thing that keeps this massive Corpse connected to the machine that arbitrarily keeps it alive is the Mined Minerals on a far off moon, Pandora.
now the important question, what is the root of the human problems in the movie and how can they trace to our world, well it is a pretty simple question, what is the problem of a company in controll of all the power in the world?
what is the goal of a company? profit, what makes profit, people, when do people spend most money, when they have a problem.
so what is the corporate solution? make a never ending circle of problems yourself so people will forever have to spend money.
what is the easiest way to do that when you are in controll? you make them reproduce, more and more and more so more people exist do spend money, what do more people need? infrasturcture and living space and ressources, where do these things come from?
your megacorporation of course, what do more livingspace, resources and infrastructure require? yet more people to build them, what do these people need? more of the before mentioned, boom, circle created.
what is the problem with this unlimited expansion though? yeah, right, there is only so much space on one planet, damn better expand to other planets to keep the system going right?
now, how does this translate to our world and how is it solvable?
well, the signs are pretty clear i would say, in our current system, the change to single megacorporations taking over the government, so Corpocracy, is allready done, elitism, so the systems of this world only benefitting the super rich, are also allready in place, corruption and greed are also allready absolutely rampant, the only thing we don’t have is the single company taking over fully in an authoritarian way, but we will get there eventually right.
so, do you see a problem here? if not, you probably dont need to read further.
if yes, what is the solution?
well, certainly not the option provided by avatar of going away from all we have build and reached as a race and live under a tree like in the stone age, we have moved away from tribal live as hunters and a system of survival of the fittest and bloodlines controlling who is in power and for good reason, this is not a compatible system with democracy.
technological advance is not the problem of our race, the problem is the systems that are in power arround the world.
what needs to happen is 1. a move away from Capitalism, at least in its current corrupted form.
2. a rock solid, uncorruptable political system that actually cares for the people, not just their money.
3rd. systems to keep this system in place and prevent falling back into our previous problems, most things will be solved by an actually honest and well working political system, because the reason so so many things are wrong is the corruption of that, but some things will require explicit fine tuning that would go too far for this comment though.
what can i take from the first avatar movie in that regard, well, i can see what went wrong with humanity and i can see what needs to happen to prevent it.
and i can see what should not be the solution, that being a 180 and go back to the stone age.
what can i take from Avatar 2, what message does it have and how can we learn from our world in comparison this time? Now, well, whaling is bad, nothing more really.
this stupid movie takes all the things i liked in the first movie and replaces them with things i dont care about, it makes the humans pure evil rather than a product of their system, it makes the blue monkey pure good rather than showing us faults in their tribal society and it makes everyone in the movie seem like a complete and utter moron in addition to making the whole first move pointless and retconning half of it.
what happened to competently acting Quarrich? why is he now a utter fool? why were the blue ones able to defeat The Full Hells Gate facility in the first one and now we struggle with some ludicrously poorly armed (in comparison) whalers? why is the humor of this movie so unbelievably bad? why why why?
this movie is an absolute dumpster fire that, even in competition to the first movie, which certainly was not an amazing movie, it makes the first one seem like a masterpiece.
like, fuck me cameron, what about this movie made you cry exactly other than how bad it was? yeah that made me cry too on the inside but not from any positive emotions.
i was aware of the faults of the first one and i could accept them because the good topped the bad for me personally but with this one, maybe it is better than the last jedi or rise of skywalker but certainly not by much, what an outstanding achievement.
The only memorable thing about Spider is that he has the hots for Kiri
The best part of this movie is when Papa smurf looks at smurfet and says is smurfing time and then smurf al over the place
One final thought on villains. IMLTHO, the single best depiction of the human villain is The Operative in Serenity. He doesn’t shy away from his status as a villain, even going so far as to recognize that there is no place for him in his ideal world. He KNOWS he is evil but genuinely believes the actions he takes are necessary. What puts him over the top is that he is correct. In order to achieve the greatest good, evil actions are necessary.
Be different just like everyone else
But James Cameron went down the bottom of the sea to raise the bar following that Honey Boo Boo child mud wrestling circuit run by Michelle Obama.
So you’re wrong lol
* edit – i commented this about 30 seconds before you referenced it 😂
Enjoying your commentary and views here. I have never had the urge to watch these movies and neither shall I in the future. So it’s nice to have some idea about the crap some of my friends are spouting about 😊
This movie is not bad