*** Official AVATAR Discussion Thread - Page 21

Hi Nicholas - I say start in thread in the Music area, and let's discuss !! :)
 

Done. :)

Nicholas, you're saying you've listened to original, pre-editing, orchestral recordings? I'm a little unclear what you mean by "every note". As a normal movie-goer, "every note" suggests to me listening to the DVD with only the music track on, but you're implying something much different, yes?

Yes, I'm referring to what's known as the recording sessions, which is basically every single cue written for the film, in addition to alternate takes and even inserts, which are short pieces that can be edited in to fit a revised scene by making it longer or shorter.

 

It's something of a taboo subject among soundtrack enthusiasts, given the legal issues associated with such things being unofficially made available, which is why I mentioned the 'condemn me if you wish' and 'nefarious means' bits. The CD soundtrack barely scratched the surface of this score.

 

I used the majority of them to make video sequences as part of my long-running hobby of making my own 'isolated score'-type video presentations, which I started doing in 2005.

 

When I put the unused cues up against the film (no sound), I was shocked at not only the flow of the  RDA/Na'vi clan war sequence as originally scored, but also the overall tone - it goes from 'hopeless, lost cause' to an almost flamboyant, 'in-your-face, bitch' sense of excitement.

 

Obviously Cameron and Co. saw things a little differently.

 

I am glad that my wife wasn't with us when my son (age 4 at the time) and I walked into Best Buy with that scene on every screen and the sound blasting at full volume throughout the store.  IMO it's a bit on the violent side for that, and she's much more sensitive about exposing Junior to that sort of thing.  (He loved it, of course. :) )

 

That about sums things up for me.  :)

NIcholas, thanks for the expansion. That's very interesting.  I enjoy music scores, perhaps more than the average joe, so perhaps I'll find such musical source some day to give a listen in a new way :)

If you or anyone else would like to actually see / hear what I'm talking about in terms of how the music for the Quaritch / Na'vi war sequence was supposed to sound like prior to the butchering and dumping done to the score, I made a video file of the sequence available. I can't put it onto YouTube because of content restrictions, so I put it up as a downloadable 16 -minute mp4 video file.

 

EDIT:

 

I made it one of those 'tiny url' links instead: 

 

http://tinyurl.com/AvatarWarVideo

 

Just right-click and 'save target / link as' and enjoy.

 

Edited by Nicholas Martin - 8/31/10 at 7:26pm

Excellent Nick. That is one compelling & rich track....that wasn't used. :( 

 

AVATAR, has the essence of the NA VI been ignored?

First of all, hello to all.

 

My name is Tony and im currently staying in the uk. English is not my mother tongue, so apologies for any spelling errors:)

 

I was wondering if the essence of the movie has been understood by the people that watched it, or, are we, has civilians of so called "first world countrys" so programmed in many ways that we fail to perceive the underlining importance that this movie tryed to convey????

Now, despite the fact that it cost millions and that such millions could have been used to allow many people to prosper or even live a few more days in many countrys in this world, i will try to "ignore" this paradox and try to give some value to the movie, mainly, because it has!!! 

 

Hollywood, as all know, is a propaganda machine. I would not say that it is owned by the US goverment, but, since in a way, there is no "big boss", yet, money is the boss, the implications are obvious. Rather simplistic silogism but i think it does the trick. Meaning that, those that hold the millions can apply for the licenses and other "what nots" involved in the costly business of movie making. Regardless, all know that many military movies, all portraying USA has a kind of Super nation, with super soldiers, are in the end  just expensive propaganda tools. The same is to be said of almost all movies, since, they provide social conditining propaganda. Most deal with just "acepting the reality"...fortenally, in this world, there are other countrys that are, for better or worse examples of many other "political configurations"...

The  funny thing about propaganda is that it will never change, unless the people that see it recognize it for what it is and, either develep a maturity that will trully benift them, specially in USA (although ill not ignore Japan, Korea, China and almost everyother pisspot country where the goverment controls underhandly the propaganda movie making machine) or, chouse not to work for such useless nonsese....but, the lure of "STATUS" is hard to resist...

 

Despite all of this and that once in a while, comes a movie that contains aspects that go beyound asserting the aceptness of the "Usual social bullshit rat race spasticness". The Passions of Christ was one. It managed to touch many peoples consciousness and, if not directly at least undirectly managed to touch subconsciousnly many peoples overall understanding of harming others. Its an EMOTION jump starting the circuitry, for more and more, like bots do we look. Ill not even comment on MATRIX because it faaaaaaaar too obvious, 

Now, Avatar, is one that contains also the same principle but focused on something else. The looooooooooooooong lost respect for the EARTH.

 

Now, it is ironic that from a country that is now even more polutant then China this movie would be born, but, at the same time, it figures that it did, no? The GIST of the movie, in my opinion, was a warning to all human beings.  A warning that stated that we have lost the plot in terms of understadind the meaning of Social Human Richness. Something akin to the social structures within the fabled Star Trek universe. Personnal gain, the Gain of SELF does not trully exist is that "one day to be future" of the Human race(leave the ferengis alone!). The variable of personnal gain not only it is destructive to our human nature(people can not control or do not have the maturity to control, their avarice and profit making "almost organic" greed), making us compete among ourselves in a way that is more akin to Canabalism then anything else...... In the end of ends, it fuels the destruction of this planet....of that FUEL im certain we will not run out fro some time now...

 

AVATAR tryed to teach the lesson that theres lasting beauty on our world...a beauty that we ignore because we have taken it for granted.....Alas, the idiot fuck spastic retards shmucks that took the fucking boat to USA from raped Europe were the ones that created this overwheliming problem, after having created it there!!! Skimming fucking romans amd their useless Robotic church wankers!

Regardless, in USA, the NATIVES have allways respected mother earth. This movie is based on that long lost love and respect.

Very obvious to see that, no? The native american theme is has obvious has my nose.

 

Theres also another lesson within......the lesson is, just how much shit and crap must a person surround themselves with????? How much materealism must one be surrounded with??????? The newer generations born in this nonsense fail to perceive that the shit that surrounds them is "shit"....they just take has "reality"...but, the old timers will remenber that before that useless bulding was there, it was all trees with a beautyfull stream running by...alas, the stream is no more and the end result is a land that was raped and raped and raped and raped that will not grow back to its former glory within 200 years. 

Obviously, theres much to blame...and most of it, speaking the truth came from the idiots that allways considered themselves "nobles"...noble born..."spastic retard inbread born" would have been better. For such idiots are the ones that are trully lacking in all things. It is strange since they came with a properly functioning brain, but, alas, something else....a particular social condiotoning molded them to be...even more programmed then us...

 

No matter where we are, we has a human race have lost almost all our connection with our planet....in truth, we are aliens now...Aliens in our own planet...all thanks to a bunch of spastic retards that understood only greed...and still do. They were usefull abortions for a awhile, providing the lesson to many of us of the meaning of "The Wise Right Thing to do", but i say, no more lessons of such! Surelly we have learned it, no??? For gods sake its the year 2010!!!! Theres Military crafts that can go piss outside the solar system but we cant even understand the value of LIFE???? Fuck sakes no???

I do not blame the birth of the "rational mind" nor the argument of scientific knowledge vs "native barbaricness", no. If one looks at Budhist culture, in Tibet one will see wonders concerning such. Masters of math and astronomy. Land of many schollars and pure beauty(now overunned with crazy chinese imperealists). Lets not forget the now destroyed toltecs, olmecs and mayans, before their decline, one would see an advanced culture that, for better or worse, was trying to live in harmony with itself...The problem was the greed that develeped in many people...unfortenally, more so in the inbread shitheads of the "rulling castes".

 

Well, i for one dream of the day when man is neither slave to technology nor to eachother. At peace with his or hers love for this earth and even, its own body...Well, a dream will be a dream. I hope also that the dream that this movie tryed to convey will not be raped by time and soon fergotten. Indeed, we have extremelly fickle memmorys...and operate more or less like batterys, in the sense that we can be charged with an idea but, after a while the inspiration drops and we soon return to more pressing concerns...is that you? Welcome to the majority of this earth...the minority are the ones doing the "real work"...

Although im a critic of USA, indeed, all Americans should be, theres much to be said of Europe and most Asian countrys.

Lets us all be critic of the THING, the horror movie that is killing us inside and not allowing us to see and understand the value of life.....unconnected to us, irrelevant of geography. We care for the life we are connected to(wife, husband, child, pet...etc) but what of our other brothers and sisters? What of their lives? What of our cousins, the many so called "animals"? So far, humabeings have not really showned their "supiriority". We still shit ourselves in front of a staving lion, and behave a great deal like a "stampede" in many occasions...actually, the term is SHEEPLE....

Life is not about who is superior or inferior...but about the comprehension of the interrelation ship of all life.....It is this concept that AVATAR showed. 

 

 

 

 

Antonio:  Welcome to the HTF.

 

A thought-provoking post, for sure.

 

Discussions on the relevancy of the themes used in Avatar to life on earth are more than welcome.  However, you brush a couple of points on which care is needed.  Since you are new here and I could see this thread quickly spiraling in the wrong direction, I will take the opportunity to post this reminder from the HTF's Rules:

 

"Hollywood, as all know, is a propaganda machine."

 

This is, of course, BS.  Hollywood tells all sorts of stories, and some of them feature "super soldiers," government officials, etc., as the bad guys.  If it were remotely true, would the government allow Avatar to be made with its message about our fragile connection to our environment?

 

As for movie-making being a rich person's game -- it's probably easier now than any other time in history for people to make movies with very little money.

I just watched this movie for the first time today. It was on cable and I happened to get it at just the right time. Actually, it was about twenty minutes in, but I decided to hit the Start Over, and watch it from the beginning. First off, I gotta say I was stunned by the improvement Hollywood has made to CGI created characters. No longer is Gollum reigning king. Visually, this was as stunning as everyone has said it was.

 

I never saw any kind of religious message, or vibe, in this movie at all. If anything, what it's promoting is good old fashioned spirituality, that all things, all life, good and bad, is connected to a larger whole. And, that technology isn't all that it's cracked up to be. I found a quote by this British physicist named, C.P. Snow. Don't recall where I read it, but it caught my eye and I wrote it down: "Technology . . . is a queer thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand and stabs you in the back with the other."

 

Yeah, I believe it. At least it was able to kick start Jake Sulley's new life on Pandora, and wasn't he lucky--or fated?--to find a "natural way" of making that switch permanent in the end.

Edited by SWFF - 11/21/10 at 8:16am

I just saw it for the first time too - Free HBO for a week - Technically stunning - A definite rule changer - even in HD it was magnificent to look at, so I'm sure it was breathtaking in 3D, but as a story - overtly, cartoonishly simplistic and done much better in other films. Plus I had a real hard time relating to the Navi, or whatever they were called. I can't embrace this motion capture thing. There needs to be a human element for me. Otherwise it just leaves me cold, like watching a really pretty video game for three hours. As a result, the whole thing got pretty tedious, though the end fight was pretty great. I find it interesting because Toy Story 3, which is entirely computer generated, absolutely shredded me emotionally. Maybe it's entirely subjective, but I'm a full submersion viewer in even the silliest of movies, and yet with Avatar, I just couldn't make that connection. 

One could make the argument that there's more of a human element in Avatar than TS3.  The Navi roles were based on capturing the acting of actors.  TS3, even though it's digital, has more in  common with traditional animation or stop  motion animation.  The performance up on the screen is created by an animator manipulating the computer models of Woody, et al.  With Avatar, the process is much closer to putting the performance of an actor on the screen.

 

I had no trouble believing in the Navi from the moment Jake opened his eyes for the first time as a Navi.  Of course I also bought into Woody and Buzz from the moment I saw them.

 

I guess it's all subjective and we all react differently.

Sorry for the threadomancy.

I finally got around to watching the extended version of the film this weekend. The ulterior motive was that my son got the see the film with me (he had not seen it yet, since he is not a huge 3D fan in theaters), and I got to see the film for the first time since a theatrical viewing way back in late 2009.

As I am not reviewing the disc but rather the film, I felt any new or reinforced thoughts should go in here. My son was actually mesmerized throughout the film, and it was a pleasure sharing it with him. Like Titanic, occasionally the criticism of a Cameron film works to make me think I overestimated the film. I recall some of the ham-handed dialogue or the too easy characterizations, and for a brief period, those color my memory and expectations. But luckily and wisely, I've learned to distance myself from emotionally resonant films for a significant period of time, enabling a rewatch with few preconceptions and just let the film stand on it's own. I knew the film would be somewhat diminished at home, as all spectacle films all. And this is a film that is fundamentally experiential, so I expected a noticeable drop-off.

Color me very surprised, as the viewing was a wonderful experience. Maybe it was the lackluster summer or the unreliable memory, but I felt a strong and consistent connection to the journey onscreen, and remembered the incredible potency of the film when I saw it in theaters. We hammered over the story issues in this thread, but I was struck again at how fundamental and human Cameron's throughlines tend to be. As Tim stated a year ago, the spectacle is the story and that remains mostly true. But like Titanic before it, Avatar taps into a very basic human need. Although Jack was the "lead" in Titanic, the story was Rose's and so the journey was hers. She received validating unconditional love through the prism of youth and passion, unsullied by experience and cynicism, and it was transformative. Jake is the lead in Avatar, and he receives very much the same lesson. Just as deeply, he finds purpose at a transitory moment in his life, and channels it to a moment that matters. For those of us either remembering or awaiting our midlife crisis, I can see the attraction to the story.

That potency, as much as the spectacle on display, is what makes Cameron the populist giant he is today. In truth, I believe the unparalleled spectacle reinforces that primal content by overwhelming us as much as the emotional journey overwhelms Jake.

Why I even thought to put the film into the machine for my son and I is also an interesting item to share.

Avatar is going big time.

I read that about a week or two ago, which got me thinking about the film. The Disney connection is an interesting one (and not because of Pocahontas), since the film operates very much on that wavelength - straightforward hero journey with visual panache. And I mean that as praise. Disney gets something they want...a perfect test case for an advanced theme park with an established property that resonates with their storytelling. And Cameron immortalizes his big risk.

Nice re-visiting review Chuck. I went to see the Extended Edition in theaters ( I guess late last year?) and loved it and thought the added moments provided an even richer experience. I haven't watched the EE Blu-ray yet but have been wanting to. Only been a couple of years, but Avatar is such a unique film. I think your thoughts echo mine and I believe Avatar, like many great films, will age nicely.

It's the only movie that the 3D really does enhance the overall experience. If I was 20th Century Fox, I would WIDELY release the 3D Blu-ray asap. With the critical success of Disney's Lion King & Beauty & The Beast 3D Blu-rays being so well mastered, you gotta believe that Avatar would really give 3D sets a big push heading into the Holidays.

And always good to read Chuck's thoughts. Good memories.

Turok Makto!!! James Cameron does it again. I wish I got to see this in 3D. I hope that one day they'll release it to the theaters again. I personally don't like Blu-Ray too much... It looks a little TOO real for me and trips me out.