I disliked Avatar in theaters, but chalked it up to wearing glasses and seeing it in 3D. I figured with the colors desaturated and the uncomfortable double glasses set up that I just made a poor choice of format.
About 4 years ago I decided to rewatch Avatar at home without the 3D gimmick.
It was worse. Everyone acts in ways that seem to serve the plot not their motivations. The heroes were all devoid of personality and a rigid unsmiling caricature of duty and honor that there was nothing likeable about them. Jake Sully has no personality other than being mystified by the world. The tall smurfs just stare longingly, tell Jake he’s dumb and sigh about the importance of the Earth.
The villains were so over the top on their moustache twirling I liked their bravado so much more than the heroes. After an hour of Smurfs telling us trees are very important in a condescending way, I wasn’t against blowing up a tree.
The battle at the end made no sense. Why the space faring race didn’t just drop a some rocks on the site is baffling to me. Why didn’t they use their range and technology advantage? They just ran as close as possible to people with spears.
I think it’s just a little too heavy handed for me, and feels like many aspects of the plot weren’t thought out.
Jake Sully has no personality other than being mystified by the world.
Agree, and his purpose is to introduce us to the alien world. Him becoming a leader is one aspect that didnt sit right with me. He didn’t earn enough goodwill to do that. Its just trust the superior humanoid, because he did something my great grandfather did.
The only good thing about this Avatar was a decent videogame tie-in.
It’s pretty clear what’s going on here - they deliberately made the blandest, most derivative story they could, so you can turn off your brain. I guess that might work for porn films and to some degree for normal movies too, but I can’t get behind using blandness so excessively.
The CGI ain’t saving that. (I don’t even like those aliens personally.) I find that this thing and the sequel being the most grossing films of all time, to be an insult to filmmaking and especially storytelling.
Seems like alot of people agree with your take. Despite its flaws, viewers found it and the sequel entertaining. I can’t see it working as a novel though.
When Avatar first came out, a friend of mine described it as “Pocahontas with a tech demo” and I’ve had a hard time enjoying it since. The story is really similar.
The old is more important than limited funds. I remember reading an interview from JMS where he mentioned B5 was about $1 million an episode. Which after accounting for inflation is about $2 million an episode in today’s money. The BSG remake was at about $1 million per episode.
I can tell you in 1995 the CGI on B5 was pretty great.
For sure it looks fake as can be, but compared to video games (of the time) it was amazing.Look at some screenshots of MechWarrior 2 or Descent and compare to B5.
At the time B5 had some of the better CGI, it’s just that amazing CGI in 1993 was awful.
The thing is there were great physical models in other shows. It was just Straczynski’s determination to go completely digital that was driving it.
DS9 was made with models because Paramount understood the technology wasn’t there yet. I just wish they’d kept high definition analogue film rather than video.
i’ve been watching some old TNG, and realized Ronald Moore (Battlestar Galactica) was very involved. but, not involved with B5 – he was influenced thereby, along with the Lost guy, Lindelof maybe. how did Babylon 5 compare to TNG in cheesyness?
B5 looks a lot cheaper and cheesier than TNG, especially as it uses really bad outdated CG-I. I also imagine it was just a lot lower budget. Im strictly talking about aesthetically from what Ive seen on YouTube. Also I don’t think Ron Moore was influenced by B5.
Yeah aside from the hard continuity issue where the main character’s actor in season one developed mental illness and had to quit - one of the most engaging sci fi universes
They really go into ideas that other shows skim over, like aliens having to breathe different atmospheres, being radically different lifeforms that need mysterious suits to interact with humans
The show is primarily a political drama, which is actually refreshing. It’s not all shootouts, it’s a lot of diplomacy. But not so incredibly serious that it’s tedious, Babylon 5 is often comical, with its outrageous alien characters
Basically a hidden gem, maybe on par with Andromeda or something. A unique b-list cult series. Has been a few years, might be time to watch it again for me
Kevin Sorbo (Hercules) got into some weird shit later in life, but it’s a great “lost in space” style show anyway. They cruise around in their lil space shippy solving mysteries or whatever. Nothing too original but fun
The first season can be hard to slog through due to the alternating wooden performance / theatre extreme facial expressions of the principal character.
I had really enjoyed the 90 minute pilot (with a different first officer) and was surprised how stiff he was when the first season.
While there’s a lot of important set up in the first season, if it’s too much of a barrier that you’re not watching B5 at all, better to skip ahead to season two.
Weirdly enough I was all aboard the season one captain, really loved the show right away. I was super disappointed that he didn’t make it back for season 2 - but eventually it was fine
Michael O’Hare was pretty healthy when they filmed the pilot, but got worse after, which is part of why season 1 was delayed; he took some time for treatment and JMS held off on filming until he was ready to come back. He took a turn while they were filming the season and it affected his acting. He came back for a guest appearance later on when he was feeling better and put in his best performance as the character. He retired shortly after, though.
Don’t skip season 1. There’s great character building in there. It does really set actual plot events in motion as well. I don’t know why anyone would say to skip it.
Now, you can decide whether to watch The Gathering (pilot episode, later released as a movie) before season 1 or not. They’ll make references to it in the show, but I don’t think most of the audience had seen it at the time those episodes aired, so skipping it might give you to “correct” experience. Some things are different that you’ll have to overlook, but there’s legitimate plot value there.
Stopping after season 4 is an ok thing to do, but I say go ahead and watch it. (Watch the Season 5 finale even if you do stop there, though).
Between seasons 4 and 5, you can watch or not watch the In The Beginning and Thirdspace movies. That’s the order they aired in. “in the beginning” is a prequel of sorts that adds some color to things we see flashbacks to throughout the show. Thirdspace was a season 4 episode that got cut when they rushed to finish the series early, I think?
The other movies…. Meh. The recent animated one was better than I expected, but I wasn’t expecting much…
As an adendum to that guy’s post, season 5 is weaker due to production issues, but really picks up in the back half and resolves the G’Kar-Londo plot. That last bit makes it worth watching all on its own, for me.
I did, but it wasn’t very good. If you really like the original, go ahead and give it a shot. Make sure you watch the Call To Arms movie, which is kind of a pilot for the spin-off.
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