What Are You Watching Right Now - Not Adam Dancing!!!

[Space Tycoon]

Max Von Sydow! Need one say more?

[Space Tycoon]

Not in relation to R-rating. Just cool in it's perrenial way.

[Space Tycoon]

Cannibal orgy. Yup. R-rating.

I'm getting repetitive. I'll stop for a bit now.

[Dalty]

And Darth Vader's voice turns into a snake!

[Dalty]

He got better....

[Space Tycoon]

I need a suggestion for a good movie(s) tonight. Something that goes well with red wine.

[Dalty]

I am watching Terminator Genysis and it's not going well with this Shiraz Cabernet I have on the go.

San Andreas next. We will see.

The extra mature cheddar though, is excellent!

[Adam54]

San Andreas was AWESOME. BIIIIIIGGGG dumb fun. Yuge.

[Dalty]

It has The Rock in it, which is always a plus point.

[Dalty]

I had low expectations to Terminator 5. Actually it's got a couple of nifty ideas in it. It's not great though.

[Dalty]

San Andreas - when I grow up I want to be The Rock!

[Dalty]

Oooooh, alert, alert, alert! This guys got money, therefore he must be evil and we shouldn't trust him!

[Dalty]

And he built a tall building. I'm betting there were some code violations? Dammit, this shit writes itself!

[Dalty]

Holy shit its Kylie Minogue!

[Space Tycoon]

Awhile ago I made a decision to watch Lost, and got about halfway through the second season. Now I've decided to pick up where I left off.

Not because I have a minor crush on Michelle Rodriguez, but rather because I have a minor crush on Michelle Rodriguez.

[Space Tycoon]

Obviously that makes no linear sense.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

Remember that time Michelle Rodriguez played a character in Avatar that was virtually indistinguishable from Vasquez in Aliens?

[Space Tycoon]

Avatar was mostly awesome and you know it.

Michelle Rodriguez deftly channelled Vasquez. The various aircraft were the spiritual descendants of the dropship from Aliens. Richard Horner elegantly recycled his leitmotifs from... well, everything.

[Space Tycoon]

I like the fact that the Congressman from Dark Knight Rises is in this season. Good actor. Kinda reminds me of P.J. O'Rourke, facially.

[Space Tycoon]

Oh. Okay. Guess that's it for him.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

Avatar was mostly awesome and you know it.

Didn't really do much for me. I wasn't exactly offended by the genericness of the narrative, or anything, but I also wasn't engaged by it. I just sort of observed it.

Visuals didn't do much for me, either. I thought it was pretty bland, on the whole. Still, I recognize that Cameron has a real knack for having his finger on the pulse. I never would have guessed so many people would be so drawn in by Avatar, just as I never would have guessed so many people would have been drawn in by something like Titanic. Cameron clearly knows audiences better than I know audiences. He's shown himself to be more of a populist than even Spielberg. That's no mean feat.

[Space Tycoon]

It did a lot for me. I believe it was somewhat prophetic.

When humans of whatever race or creed finally reach out to the stars and encounter other beings, one hopes they will not repeat the mistakes of the past. Or indeed, be victims of similar crimes.

I realize that these themes have been explored very frequently in written sf, and in other media. But Avatar was one of the first major motion pictures to depict such events on the big screen.

[Space Tycoon]

I kind of put District 9 in that same category.

[The Swollen Goiter of God]

FernGully and Pocahontas and Dances with Wolves all explored similar themes (pretty famously, since the similarities to them and to Poul Anderson's Call Me Joe were brought up constantly). They don't do it with aliens, I grant you. If you wanna go aliens, there's Battle for Terra. And maybe even Dune and Starship Troopers, to a certain extent. And Stargate, if only in a roundabout way. And there's a touch of it in Plan 9 from Outer Space.

There are also a number of Twilight Zone episodes exploring similar themes--though I realize they were on the small screen.

I'm sure there's a lengthy entry on the TV Tropes site for something like "Humans Are the Bad Guys." Probably wouldn't take much digging to find it.

I made sure to see it in 3D first, like Cameron told me to. The 3D looked better than the typical post-conversion 3D that would follow in its wake, but I don't know that it felt any more immersive than "good"/natively shot 3D usually feels. I think the most immersive 3D has ever been for me was during the opening sequence of Hugo. Even then, I could have taken it or left it.

I've always felt that a big part of why Avatar exists is that Cameron wanted to push new cinema tech, and he put it in as un-bitter a pill as he could manufacture. If this was truly his intention, he was more successful with it than Lucas was with the prequels.

[Dalty]

Meanwhile Samsung and LG - the worlds two biggest TV makers, are shit canning 3D from their new line up. The 3D revival started with Avatar but is dying out.