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this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2024
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A lot of movies are shallow. This one just rubbed people the wrong way because it was pro environmental.
It rubbed me the wrong way because it's still the mighty whitey fantasy. White dude comes in and is better at all the native stuff than the natives. It's just using blue alien sexy placeholders for the aboriginals.
Yes, that's the biggest and probably most valid criticism not tied to the film's writing or acting. It's pure white savior narrative. Same issue with Last of the Mohicans and a bunch of other movies.
My dad says it's one of the best movies he's ever seen, but specifically because we saw it in IMAX 3D and the graphics were outstanding. Beyond that, he agrees with me that it's just Fern Gully (but without Robin Williams, which instantly makes it worse), which is basically just Disney's Pocahontas.
I always called it "Dances with Fergully"
It's either that or people are salty these movies are so successful... But then again, I never see people complaining about how shallow the latest Transformers or Fast & Furious or Jurassic World movie is yet it's all I see whenever either Avatar movie is mentioned.
I've got a friend who's a big fan of the OG Transformers and all the comics and deep lore, and I can guarantee you that he's not happy every time another terrible live action Transformers movie comes out and is in the top three biggest movies of the year.
How can people who didn't like the Avatar movies not simply drop it after a while. Their dislike isn't that it's shallow. If that was it, they'd have moved on. It's something else. Their hate has the same kind of vibe as people complaining about "wokeness" in other movies. Hell, I still hear people complaining about the "bad science" and "unrealistic villains" of Captain Planet, but praise 80's Transformers.
My grandson loved the Transformers movies even though I can't remember a thing about the first one (the only one I've seen). Lindsay Ellis did an essay on why the first one is so forgetable (hint, its Michael Bay's direction). I also was way too creeped out by the decepticon woman (Alice from Revenge of the Fallen) which was a total Michael Bay creation showing a bit too much about Bay's issues with women.
Avatar has James Cameron's solid direction and scriptwriting. It has the kind of strong women that Cameron can seem to write that others cannot seem to get right. But Avatar gets into some creepy themes much the way True Lies did to which Cameron clearly has a blind spot.