Failure

Inspired by a comment I saw on Ryanne's blog..

Avatar so deserved to lose at the Oscars

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA~ But seriously, it earned a few technical Oscars, and that's really what it deserves. When I watched it in that packed cinema, I could only concentrate on "Ooooooh those plants look pretty" and "Oooooh those explosions are cool". What innovative storyline? I could pull the plot out of my ass and James Cameron wouldn't even have to pay me.

Special dude goes to new planet. Special dude makes stupid mistake and lands with native aliens. Special dude blends in and falls in love with alien dudette. Evil humans want to take over new planet. Special dude gets epiphany and sides with aliens to save new planet. Special dude becomes alien. Good end.

It was so.. typical. Nothing surprised me at all in the story. Jake would become the famed "Toruk Makto"? When I first saw that thing and heard the "legend", it was already cemented that it was bound to happen. In order to make an "epic masterpiece", James Cameron threw away all plot creativity and went for the usual hero's tale and what a disappointment. Story-wise, there was no innovation and it made me feel numb while watching the whole 3 hour fest. The characters were decent enough with solid acting; you liked the good guys and hated the bad guys. No one was in some "gray area" where you could go on and debate for hours after the movie ended. Seriously, just look at the reviews online. I feel as if Cameron bribed them or something, they all harp on "technological and CG innovations", "beautiful and interesting new world" while carefully avoiding anything about the lacklustre plot. I would have been more forgiving, but all this hype about Avatar being the next coming of Jesus or something is complete bullshit IMHO. I left the movie with such befuddled feelings until I realised it was actually a load of over-hyped flashy stuff.

So yeah, the Oscars did not shun big-budgeted movies, they shunned overpriced mediocre ones this year, and I feel that the only reason James Cameron had a shot for Best Director was because he could contain all that run-of-the-mill material into one flashy comprehensible pudding that ultimately didn't suck, but is undeserving of any praise other than for ground-breaking graphics. It almost feels as if he did that 10-year wait because he knew Avatar would be nothing without beautiful visuals.

Amen =P