Avatar | Teen Ink

Avatar

December 23, 2009
By 808PopSugarJunkie BRONZE, Scarborough, Other
808PopSugarJunkie BRONZE, Scarborough, Other
3 articles 0 photos 4 comments

Favorite Quote:
&quot;Youth is wasted on the young&quot; <br /> &quot;Don&#039;t let schooling interfere with your education&quot; - Mark Twain


James Cameroon’s latest, Avatar, had taken him quite a while to make – 14 years ago, he says, he started to write the script. No one can really blame him – with amazing 3D technology creating an absolutely stunning visual marvel, Avatar is a movie that is well-worth the wait. However, if you compare to Titanic, one will be sorely disappointed. Avatar is a movie that does hit all the right points – good plot, great effects – but when viewing it, there seemed to be something lacking. Later on I could pinpoint what it really was – the visual effects seemed to be front-and-centre compared to the actual plot of the movie. The plot, which was more dominant in Titanic, didn’t seem to work as well here – there wasn’t enough foreshadowing or character development to make one truly feel for the story.
Sorry for continually making the comparison to Titanic, but Titanic was such a big success that it’s hard to imagine that Avatar even standing up to it. It’s nice to know that Avatar does somewhat stand up to it though. The technology in this movie is much better than Titanic’s, but the plot seems borrowed. One can draw comparisons with movies like ‘Dances with Wolves’, and countless others. It’s year 2154 and humans need a new mineral called unobtainium which can only be found on a moon called Pandora. The humans want to destroy the planet in order to salvage the mineral but the native species, the Na’vi, won’t let them. With this big concept of ‘mankind’s destructive ways’ (it’s quite easy to see the parallels), there’s always the love story woven in. In this case – an ex-marine, Jake Sully, falls in love with Na’vi princess Neytiri, while in avatar form. The plot is just like Titanic – big concept (human destruction, sinking of Titanic), tackled with a personal narrative (love story, emotions).
Throughout the movie, the awkwardness of some bits could be attributed to the characters themselves. The romance between the protagonist, Jake Sully, and Neytiri, a Na’vi warrior, did not seem as, for lack of a better word, romantic as it could have been. There were some bits in the plot that were hard to get at first – what was up with Jake trying to ride that really big dragon thing? But soon the plot does come together, and the latter half of the movie really picks up. Overall, Avatar is a good movie with a decent plot and characters that are thrust to the back in comparison to the visual effects, but work nonetheless.


The author's comments:
I had just recently watched Avatar and I just wanted to post a review of it up on this site.

Similar Articles

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 2 comments.


on Dec. 19 2010 at 3:40 pm
Confused_scheherazade ELITE, Brooklyn, New York, New York
132 articles 0 photos 24 comments

Favorite Quote:
I know nothing, but of miracles.

Your review was good. You bring up some good points. Even though Avatar is on of my favorite movies it does have some qualities that degrade it value, like the dry dialogue at some points in the movie. But the goal of Avatar is to give people today a hint at what's going on in our world today and does that while giving us something to relate to and giving us hope that we can improve. I believe that Avatar was worth watching.

 


on Sep. 13 2010 at 7:19 pm
DiamondsIntheGrass GOLD, Martinsville, New Jersey
14 articles 1 photo 278 comments

Favorite Quote:
Worry is simply a misuse of the imagination.

nice review, flows very well, but i don't think it was a good idea to compare it to titanic.  other than having the same director, there is not much similarity between the two movies.  titanic is clearly a love story, while avatar is more of an internal conflict story with a traitor (technically, but it sounds so mean when its put like that...) but, overall, nice review.