I know someone out there just had an aneurysm over the title and I apologize for that. But certain thoughts just can’t be helped.  While watching the 2nd highest grossing film in the world, I thought back to an article I read about Avatar which asked if this was the new Star Wars.  In one word: Maybe.

I can see why this correlation would be made; Lucas was a visual effects pioneer and so is Cameron. The latter waited almost twelve years before the technology was in place for him to make his visual masterpiece.  Lucas took an ages-old formula (the Hero’s Journey) and turned it into six box office busters while Cameron took that formula and made it look really, really nice. But what they have in visual aptitude they lack in dialogue, plot, and characterization.

Yes, anyone can say, “Oh I would have done this or that” or “I saw that coming a mile away” but does it hurt to be a little original along the way? If I were to come up with a synopsis in one sentence, it would be, “Dances with Wolves in the far off future in space.” Done. Doing so would be an injustice to Cameron and his team but alas, it is what it is; a grand visual epic that is truly the best-looking movie that has ever existed. CGI or not, this is how sci-fi should be;  so damn beautiful that you can’t even tell what is CGI or what isn’t. During one scene when a helicraft is landing, I questioned whether the blades of moving grass were even real. And the facial expressions that were captured exceeded my jaded expectations.

But like Lucas, he is reaching into his past bag of tricks and amending them to be part of his universe. Yes, everyone likes a solid formula (guy gets girl, loses girl, fights heaven and earth to get her and they live happily ever after) but that formula needs to be tweaked so that it resembles nothing like it’s former self. For example, The Abyss; man and woman in midst of divorce are commissioned by the military to help Marines retrieve a nuclear device. There are some drill grunts, the engineers, and the grunts. The drill grunts are weary of the Marines and the husband and wife work together albeit hesitantly. The aliens below want to prevent war from occurring and interact to save us all. Bad Marine dies, the rest atone, happy ending. Aliens; Ripley is woken up over seven decades later by a corporation who needs her assistance with the Aliens. She becomes an adoptive mother of the sole survivor of a colony ravaged by aliens. The greedy corporate hedgehog gets his just desserts, all of the Marines except one good guy and one robot die, and the last Marines to die do so honorably via sacrifice. Ripley beats up momma alien. Everyone is happy. Until Fincher’s debut causes Scanners-like head explosions around the world due to its pure IDGAF (I Don’t Give A Fuck) attitude concerning the surviving characters, except Ripley of course.  T2;  authority issues, scientist sacrifices self, mother sacrifices life for child and future. Avatar; Dances with Wolves in space.  A VERY sexy looking Dances with Wolves in space.

Don’t get me wrong, technically, Cameron can’t be touched. He’s taken what Peter Jackson and George Lucas have accomplished and turned it up a trillion volts. He is the King of Pop Cinema and it would take another technical visionary to come close to what he has accomplished (Neil Blomkampf may be that man) but please Jim, let someone work with you to tighten up those plots and characters. Maybe he should use a recycle system like the plastic bottles with the numbers. You can only recycle them but so many times.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 at 10:41 am and is filed under Movies/Television, Random. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.