'Hi is that the Toshiba help line, yeah, I've dropped a bit of water on my computer, is there anything you can do to help?'
Yesterday I went to see Avatar. It is the biggest pile of crap my eyes have rested on for a long time. It is three hours too long. It is wooden, cliched, hackneyed, boring and lacks any real depth. Even the 3D gets boring after half an hour. I'm not going to dwell on this as there is a great review of the film HERE. But what I did notice was that James Cameron used the same basic designs for the vehicles as he did in Aliens, the Marine's drop ships were very similar and there is a walker very similar to the Cargo-Loaders in Aliens. Obviously Cameron has a hard-on for these vehicles and now has the technology to play with to make them seem more realistic. What did annoy me though, was the fact that the Marines in Avatar are using Helicopters and machine guns. This film is set about 150 years in the future. This is the same as the British Army of today going into Iraq armed with muskets and smooth bore cannons.
Operation Desert Storm kicked off in grand style!
Whilst on the subject of similarities between Aliens and Avatar, I noticed several others. Both films centre on a repressed race under siege and fighting a territorial battle for survival. Except in Aliens they spit acid. Both films have the Marines attacking the alien race, but in Aliens the Marines are 'good' in Avatar the Marines are 'bad'. Basically the message here breaks down to in the 1980's war=good, in 2010 war=bad. This is how simplistic and banal the 'message' behind Avatar is. And it is forced on you like sledgehammer blows. It also purports to have an ecological message behind it all (which is in itself is bullshit as Cameron spent the GNP of a small African Nation making this film, money which would have been better spent on combating CO2 emissions...), as does Aliens, however. What it the ecological message in Aliens? 'Take off and nuke the entire site from orbit.' Which to be honest, is what I would have done with the Navi. I felt no compassion for them whilst watching Avatar. My loyalties sat with the humans, why would I be compassionate about a race of aliens of which I knew nothing? They are sitting on a rich seam of unobtainium (please...........), get them shifted off it and mine the fuck out of their planet. Who cares? I would have felt far more sympathy had the film been based around a tribe of Masai, fighting against an overwhelming presence. Why, because the Masai are human and the Navi are lanky blue skinned freaks. Having said all that, I shouldn't have been surprised as this was a film from the man who brought you Titanic...
Navi? Problem solved...
