I’d never really thought about the parallels between Smurfs and Avatar before – a bunch of blue creatures fighting off an oppressor in their homeland.
Tag: Avatar
Spiritual dinosaurs
Some people are worried that Avatar is promoting pantheism. Dinosaur Comics captured, in six frames, the reason I don’t think pantheism will ever catch on (past that odd new age spirituality movement)…
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Avatari
I saw Avatar in 3D last night. I have nothing to add to every other review that mentions its stunning visuals and crappy storyline.
Andrew of Daily Vowel Movements summed it up like this.
I’d add Romeo and Juliette to that list. Being unoriginal is not a deal breaker. There are only six movie plot lines afterall. Take away the amazing use of light and 3D stuff and Avatar is below B grade.
But I do have this to offer – Avatar as an Atari game.
Overthinking box office figures
I’ve recently discovered “Overthinking It” a brilliant blog specialising in over analysis of pop culture.
They don’t like Avatar much over there (and I must confess I still haven’t seen it).
But they make a good point about how unfair it is to measure movies by box office spend:
In 1997, I paid $7 to see Titanic.
In 2009, I paid $15 to see Avatar.
Even adjusted for inflation, this is insane.
I tend to like densely populated places, so these were both fairly high prices for movie tickets at the time, and location isn’t a major contributor toward the change in ticket price. Yes, I saw Avatar in 3D, but the 3D is there specifically to raise the price of the ticket, not because of the higher costs. It’s price inflation disguised as a “value-add.” For the sake of box office numbers, that doesn’t really matter, now does it?
Furthermore, according to the World Bank:
In 1997, combined global gross domestic product was $30.1 trillion in nominal terms.
In 2008 (the latest year of available data), it was $60.6 trillion.
So, between Titanic and Avatar, the price of my ticket more than doubled, and the size of the global economy also more than doubled. Talk about a fair fight.
But, to offer a little more insight, from the same source:
In 1997, the gross domestic product of China in dollar terms was $953 billion.
In 2008, it was $4.33 trillion.
That’s an increase of 354%.
Avatar = plot avarice
Turns out that not only did James Cameron rip off Fern Gully, but Pocahontas as well. Perhaps there are only six unique plots in the world after all…
At the core of each of these stories is a greedy person trying to rip off the naive and innocent.
Here’s a reworking of a Pocahontas synopsis or script or something for the purpose of making the point.
Via boingboing.
Avatar v Fern Gully
I haven’t seen Avatar yet. I know it’ll be worthwhile when I eventually do.
But a few people – davemiers.com included – have been saying it’s just a pretty version of Fern Gully.
Here’s a YouTube mashup.