AVATARD Vs. TRANSFORMERS 2

As I've said previously, the movie AVATAR reminds me of most is STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE (1979). Both have about 20 minutes of plot spread out over several extra hours of what were state-of-the-art special effects at the time of release and therefore have no entertainment value three decades after they are released.

That being said, the movie that AVATAR is most like in the past decade is TRANSFORMERS 2 (but only because DANCES WITH WOLVES and FERNGULLY were made in the early 90s). So, I decided to compare the two side by side in several categories to determine which was the better film. Join me, if you will, in examining two of the longest, most boring films of 2009.


As with my previous AVATARD blog, if you haven't seen AVATAR, don't read between the happy smurf and the bored smurf. Because, between the happy and the bored smurf lies the plot of AVATAR (Get it this time? Because between the a happy and bored Nick there was a viewing of Avatar. [Gee, I love my own shit]. There is only 1 instance of spoilers. So enjoy the rest all you smart people who skipped AVATAR!

CAST

TRANSFORMERS 2 : Shia LeBeouf, Megan Fox, John Tuturro, giant robots.

AVATAR : Sigourny Weaver, Uhura from STAR TREK (sort of), that general from THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS, that dude-from-TERMINATOR: SALVATION-who-Hollywood-keeps-trying-to-pass-off-as-a-star-but-I-don't-see-it, that gawky dude from DODGEBALL, smurfs.

Advantage: TRANSFORMERS 2. Sure, Megan Fox is one of the worst actors of all time (if not the worst), but nobody fucks with the beef (Shia). He's Spielberg's golden boy. He's got the good looks, the great arms (as my sister informs me), the charm, the comedic edge... he's the next Ben Affleck as far as action movies are concerned (I bet he'll fade just as fast). And John Tuturro is hilarious. All Avatar really has is Sigourney Weaver, and she is 20 years past "movie star" status.

SCRIPT

TRANSFORMERS 2: Megatron is back and he wants... something. Shia's going to college... yada, yada, yada... explosions. Giant plot holes ensue, dialog stinks, characters are straight from INDEPENDENCE DAY. Typical Michael Bay movie. Written by those two whiz kids who wrote STAR TREK (WTF? Best and worst blockbuster scripts of the year are by the same guys? [Explanation, one script was written before the strike, the other after. Yet both came out at the same time, just a year after it ended... peculiar.]).

AVATAR: Dances With Smurfs. No plot holes neccesarily, but important details are left out, dialog stinks, and characters are straight out of typical Sci Fi handbook. Feels like a Michael Bay movie. Written by James Cameron (who brought you TITANIC).

Advantage: AVATAR. You didn't actually think I would say AVATAR's script was worse than TRANSFORMERS 2 did you? Sure AVATAR's script sucked, but TRANSFORMERS 2 didn't even make sense!

RACISM

TRANSFORMERS 2: The two most racist CGI characters sense Jar Jar Binks. Two robots who speak like they are "gangsta," wear gold chains and have gold teeth, and can't read. Fail.

AVATAR: The most racist alien species since the Gungans (Jar Jar's people). Those blue aliens are obviously like an "African tribe" in all ways except their skin is blue, down to the casting (all the main smurfs were played by black actors). My friend Bobby explained it best in his AVATAR review.

Advantage: TRANSFORMERS 2. It doesn't get much more racist than two "black" futuristic robots who are machines far more advanced than humans, yet still cannot read. But, at least this racism made for amusing moments.

DIRECTOR

TRANSFORMERS 2 : Michael Bay (THE ROCK, BAD BOYS, THE ISLAND, ARMAGEDDON)

AVATAR: James Cameron (TERMINATOR 1 & 2, ALIENS, TITANIC)

Advantage: Tie. After these two three hour spectacles, I honestly can't tell the difference between the two.

SEX APPEAL

TRANSFORMERS 2: Two words: Megan Fox. Okay, three words: Megan Fucking Fox! Okay, many words (that's right, I was too lazy to count them): Megan Fucking Fox oiled up before every scene.

AVATAR: A sex scene between two smurfs? Then, later, a scene where a smurf caresses a human with her blue hands?
And Sigourney Weaver is the only human chick in the movie? What the fuck were they thinking?

Advantage: Megan Fox... er... TRANSFORMERS 2.

LENGTH

TRANSFORMERS 2: 150 minutes.

AVATAR: 162 minutes.

Advantage: God bless you, Michael Bay, for keeping your film under 162 minutes!

SPECIAL EFFECTS

TRANSFORMERS 2: State of the art special effects animate giant robots that look flawless.

AVATAR: State of the art special effects animate blue aliens that look soulless (like every CGI character before them), but also pretty flawless other than that. 3-D is pretty damn cool (though those glasses were not designed to be worn for 3 hours!).

Advantage: AVATAR, only because of the 3-D. Otherwise, both have state of the art special effects and anyone who claims one is "more fake" or "less fake" than the other is full of shit.

FINAL TALLY

TRANSFORMERS 2: 5

AVATAR: 3

(That's 5 points for Trannies 2 and 3 points for AVATAR, not TRANSFOMERS 25 and AVATAR 3. Both ideas terrify The Living Daylights out of me [shit son, there's another Bond reference mother fucker {can anyone say callback?}]).

So, Megan Fox... er... TRANSFORMERS 2 for the win.!

But, it is such a shitty movie, so going against the data, I'm gonna say AVATAR is the better movie. Script is so important to me and AVATAR squeaks by in that category because TRANSFORMERS 2 really has one of the worst scripts of all time.

Still, I hope to God I won't be seeing either, ever again.

Be seeing you.

AVATARD

This is my blog about the masterpiece that is James Cameron's AVATAR. Why I loved it oh, so very much!

This is my third time attempting to write this blog. From scratch. It keeps getting boring as shit. Even by my standards. Let's try this again. (Hmmm, maybe this is fitting. AVATAR bored the shit out of me and maybe the only way I can express this pain is to bore the shit our of you...)

First off, I will warn you when Spoilers arise, if you have not seen the movie. Let's do it like this...

When you see this picture of a happy Smurf stop reading!

Until you see the picture of a Bored As Shit Smurf which means it is safe to read again!
Get it?

Let's practice.

What I really hated about AVATAR was...

...AVATAR spoiler. Spoil, spoil, spoil, spoil, spoily, spoil...
... Which is why AVATAR was a shitty movie.

Get it? If you haven't seen AVATAR and don't want it spoiled, than don't read between the happy and the bored Smurf. Because, between the happy and the bored smurf are the Avatar plot points. Get it?

Okay. Here we go, then.

AVATAR is perhaps the most overrated movie ever. People seem to love it, and I just don't get that. I mean, I understand how opinion works. But, what I don't understand is how the general opinion of AVATAR is so positive. I mean, just looking at the reviews and the Schmo response on joblo.com, the overall response to the film seems to be positive. But how can so many people like it?

I'm usually pretty in tune with general opinion (which I mainly gauge off the Joblo Schmo crowd). Even if I don't agree, I can understand how it can be so. I get why two of my loves, SPIDER-MAN 3 and INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL are most often received with scorn. It's easy to see why STAR TREK was loved by critics and Schmos alike, but TRANSFORMERS 2 was mainly trashed by both. I am in tune with my fellow Schmoes.

But I can't fathom how my Schmoes, who are normally above brainless action spectacle, are in love with AVATAR. Because that's all it is. Brainless. Action. Spectacle. Lots of CGI, very little narrative.

I feel it is best compared to STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE (not 2009's TREK). That movie was a beauty in 1979. Wow-e, children, look at those flashy special effects. And, that movie WAS mainly special effects. Seriously, it was all glory shots of the Enterprise slowly floating through space to the Star Trek theme. A two hour movie with twenty minutes of plot. It had less plot than an hour episode of Star Trek!

So, today. STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE has aged horribly. Boring as shit. I bet the only reason people remember it at all is that it is part of a beloved franchise. Meanwhile, STAR WARS is still a favorite, because it didn't just have the flash, it had the substance to back up that flash. I'm talking enthralling story, complex characters, strong dialogue. STAR WARS was TREK with substance.

Today, we have AVATAR. All glory shots of the planet, Pandora, and no substance. The effects are great, but in thirty years, won't my children (should they even exist) be like, "What the fuck is this lint (slang for 'noise' in 2039)? All this movie is...er... is shots of these poorly animated blue aliens running through the jungle! This looks so fake!"

What I'm getting at, is though my peers seemed to have forgotten that special effects are only part a successful movie equation, my children will not when they see special effects that are thirty years out of date. And no, AVATAR's effects are not so perfect that they will still look great in 30 years. The aliens in AVATAR still look like what they are, a computer effect, not a real being. So they will look like an outdated computer effect as Cameron progresses technology farther into the future while continuing to forget about story.

So that's my overall issue with AVATAR. Here is a quick rundown of it's other short comings (in no particular order)...

1. Horrendous exposition. Early in AVATAR, one character explains to another character why they are on Pandora. Both characters know why they are there. So why must one character explain it so?

It's for the audience's benefit. 100%. Which is very shitty screenwriting, Mr. Cameron. If you have a character explaining something to a character who doesn't know the information, then that's okay. But the way it exists now never happens in real life. If you and I both know why we are on Pandora, then why would I explain it to you again? There's no one watching us that needs this information... unless we are in a shittily written movie...


A load of exposition is also given when Sully records his video logs. This is one way to do it, but it's a fucking lazy way. As a wanna-be writer, I have no respect for someone who pretty much allows his character to talk to the audience, telling them everything rather than showing them in a creative way. Cameron is apparently not as creative as his visual effects would suggest...

2. It's too fucking long! Okay, movies that are close to 3 hours can be epic (see THE DARK KNIGHT). But they can also be boring (see TRANSFORMERS 2, FUNNY PEOPLE, 2012). Why can't directors make shorter movies? STAR TREK was the best blockbuster of the year, and it was only two hours. Keep your movie close to 2 hours, unless you really have some substance fill those extra minutes with.

In AVATAR, I literally checked my cell phone at the 2 hour mark, expecting to be close to the end, plot wise. When I saw I had a full hour left to sit through, I almost walked out (and would have if I didn't have to wait another hour for my next film). I mean, nothing pisses me off like an hour long third act. Nothing bores me quite like one either...

3. So, as it turns out, there was no tension in AVATAR until the very end. Cameron, slyly, did not tell you the avatar rules. Is this like the MATRIX? Do people die if their avatar dies? Without explanation, we saw characters, like our protagonist Sully, run from threats and fight for their lives. Then, in the third act, when that gawky guy from DODGEBALL's avatar got shot... he was fine. So... Sully's life was never really in danger the entire movie (until that crazy general threatened his actual body in the third act). All these close calls would not have meant death at all, even had his Avatar gotten killed... Where's the fucking tension? Without tension, why do I give a flying fuck? (Answer, I don't. Hence the boredom).

4. The CGI is not a game changer, after all. AVATAR was supposed to change movies forever. The special effects where supposed to be unlike anything we've ever seen before. I've seen AVATAR and I can safely say, I don't get it.

Are the effects really any better than STAR TREK or TRANSFORMERS 2? The 3-D is something they didn't have, but it's hardly a game changer. UP was just as cool in 3-D. So, really, why are you people blown away by AVATAR (I'm not asking you, necessarily)? Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with the special effects, but there is nothing revolutionary about them either. STAR TREK was just as pretty. But IT had substance...

That being said, the 3-D is cool. I would like to see an entertaining action movie in 3-D next time. May I nominate BOND 23 or STAR TREK 2 for 3-D?

Anyway, that's my beef with AVATAR. I mean, the dialogue sucked on the whole and the story was uneventful, but that's all that needs to be said about that. Don't need a number for it or nothing.

Real quick, other really small, more knit-picky, opinion kind of stuff...

Why use crazy CGI to create humanoid aliens? Why not blow us away with something we have literally never seen before. You could have literally painted actor's blue and gotten the same effect as all that expensive CGI, but they would have looked real! Not like CGI...

If you're going to spend 500 mil on a movie, shouldn't it be more original? I've seen AVATAR before, Mr. Cameron, it's called FERN GULLY (I also hear DANCES WITH WOLVES is very similar). I know very few movies are completely original, but you can get more original than this...


What does the expensive rock they're after do? You over explain everything else, why not attempt to explain that?

Anyway, enough bitchin' for one night. I didn't like AVATAR. Whah! My daddy's in prison! Boo-frickity-hoo. But I had to write something. I have promises to keep.

And miles to go before I sleep.

And miles to go before I sleep.

But, seriously, my prediction is that in thirty years, you don't remember AVATAR either.

Be seeing you.