• yes, besides, you have to use rottentomatoes percentages in a certain way: 1: the rating itself out of 2: HOW MANY reviews A movie could have a single positive review making it 100% fresh...

• Yo homies, I just saw this movie with that fat homie LB and a buncha the homies, and it fuckin' SUCKED. For one the colonel didnt cuss that much. What fuckin realism do you call that? I know they wanted PG-13 but they coulda at least bleeped him or something. Shit. Then, there wasn't ANY rap! This is the best movie ever WHY?! I know it's in space but if you have aliens then GODDAMNIT should you have some rap while you're being innacurate to real life. Third, why did the alien homies throw spears and shoot arrows an shit at the Navy SEALS when they coulda grabbed AKs and capped their asses?! And the main alien homie and that hot alien babe didn't even have sexytime! That's BULLSHIT! I know its fuckin PG13 but AIRPLANE had some hot chick SHOW HER GOZANGAS at the screen and what rating did IT get? PMOTHERFUCKINGG! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH! Finally, why did the main alien homie have to fight the colonel at the end when they could have settled their differences with a rap battle? It makes no motherfuckin sense homie. >:O All in all, F-. Peace roaddawgs.

• You do know that Roger Ebert doesn't see 90% of the movies he reviews. He has like 2 or 3 girls that watch movies for him and then brief him. He started doing this in the early 90's. One of my professors knew one of the girls, it was the only reason he still liked the reviews, because the girl was a good film student. Nonetheless, no Avatar trailer has made go "Wow, I need to see this film now!", like the Iron Man 2 trailer. And trailers, for better or worse, are what supposed to influence us to see a movie. So far, these trailers have made me want to see it about as much as I wanted to see Paul Blart, Mall Cop.

• Personally, I would call Avatar the Mirror's Edge of movies. Lots of free-running, interesting combat that gets old after a while and a terrible plot. The plot just has too many weak points. From the tactics of the Na'Vi, to the single universal access ports that all life on Pandora share or even just the hackneyed characters, I found that the visuals didn't in any way make up for it. If Cameron had cut out most of the long, stretched out corny romance sections, the movie could have been decent. However, these sections slowed down the movie and were often completely cringeworthy. The description of this movie as a Dances with Wolves remake with futuristic technology is quite close to accurate. All in all, the first 70-80 mins and the last 30 minutes are worth seeing. Between these periods, you get hackneyed "small band struggling against the might of the evil military" and not much else.

• Looks to be an awesome video game! Can't wait to play it on my XBox360. Who knew James Cameron (who get's an oo sound with one o - amazing) could make awesome video games. Does Mario make an appearance? They should put in Mario.

• This rant gets my 100% approval rating. I agree with every single word in the main post, and it's fairly eloquently put together. Cheers to you, Rob. And kudos. You deserve 'em. Story is mightily important, and it is for that reason that I don't think I'll care for Avatar. As has been mentioned, the critics love the visual spectacle, but even the ones who give the movie a positive review are honest about the story being a very weak aspect. That, to me, does not bode well. It's easy to see the possibilities of some visual film magic taking place in the theater, but I was hoping the critics would be able to point to the story and say it isn't the weakest link, or, if it is, that it's still a good story. Most critics, even the ones with positive reviews of the film, don't say that. Ugh. It really is like Titanic all over again. Still, I'll see it. In the theater. In 3-D. You HAVE to.

• To understand Ebert's reviews, you must understand what he cares about. For one, he cares more about questions than answers (especially if the questions come from a more liberal basis). Two, he cares a lot about scientific progress and technological advancements. Three, he's a sucker for any narrative in a "classic" mold. Four, he's a big, big, big believer in the auteur theory of film. You add all of those things together, and Avatar might just be the perfect film for ol' Rog. I certainly don't agree with all of his reviews (Knowing is a prime example), but he has been, and still is, a very thoughtful critic who loves movies. Though, I do find his blog on the Chicago Sun Times website generally more interesting than any review he's written in the last few years.

• That sounds like something Roger Ebert would say.

• GI Joe had no critic screenings, so mainstream critics weren't responsible for that 89%.

• For years we've been getting hype that this was going to be the greatest sci-fi movie EVER! And from the very first trailer to today all we've ever seen was blue furries and ker-plosions wrapped in the plot of "Battle for Terra". Even the great Stephen Lang (who I saw do Hamlet on Broadway 20 years ago) has been reduced to a one-dimensional stereotype to the point that I'd be shocked if there isn't at least one scene where he's seen chomping on a cigar while playing poker and telling war stories.

• " there's nothing in any of the Avatar promos that have ever made me want to see it" Sometimes I wonder if you and some of the other people here are true nerds. This movie is nerd-meth and it boggles my mind that you could honestly say there's nothing in the trailers to make you want to see it.

• Ever since he came back from cancer surgery,Roger Ebert has been handing out stars as though they're Skittles. While a 4-star review is still not an easy feat, it's hardly rare. As for the possibility of financial success for the movie, well, there's only one IMAX theater within 100-miles of where I live and they still have plenty of tickets available for tomorrow. "The Dark Knight" on the other hand was sold out for about a week in advance.

• avatar definitely lacks the broad appeal of titanic. cg, sci-fi, blue alien cat creatures? i seriously wonder at it's box office appeal. i can't imagine who the audience is intended to be. i'll be very surprised if it does well with mainstream audiences. then again, alot of grown men with families play halo nowadays.

• It's like this: one cannot reserve judgment until after seeing a movie in a theater. Once you buy the ticket, you have demonstrated market approval. Any opinions you form after money has changed hands are irrelevant to the market response numbers that the studio will be seeing. And, frankly, I don't have the budget to buy movie tickets for movies that suck. Visual effects cannot compensate for terrible story. I will not use Transformers as the example, because Terminator 4 was better looking and a much, much worse story. To mangle an old movie quote, "I could spend $500 million on a detailed, 3-D, CG rendering of a piece of shit, but all that gives you is a picture of shit."

• What I´m starting to hate about Avatar is that if this movie had awful FX it would be an embarrasing sci fi channel movie, but it´s budget make it "ok" even though in the end is mere crap. Perhaps even more because they spend more money on it, at least the sci-fi movies are made like in 2 weeks

• Holy shit! A Fern Gully reference! That is utterly fantastic! That is exactly what this movie looks like! Kudos to you! This movie is from hence forth going to be refered to me as "Cameron's Epic Fern Gully!" Love it!

• I wasted 90 mins of my life tonight laughing at folks on Rotten Tomatoes that troll the negative reviews and rant about how the reviewer doesn't know anything. Most of these folks have now even seen the movie. I was laughing hard until I realized... shit, I'm reading this? I even responded one. Yeah, that a fail.

• That's the best description of "Anti-Christ" ever. Wow.

• Just to let you know, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, had an 89% approval rating on rottentomatoes before the movie actually released. The week following the premier it fell into the 30s. Just something to chew on.

• Eww. Good to know. Yeah, probably about time I stopped paying attention. I should have probably gathered, but it seems critics just shift their opinions and preferences completely at random. Thoroughly disappointing.

• I have a funny feeling that all the big selling points and plot devices in Avatar will have already been done (in a way better fashion) in District 9. James Cameron should stick to making sequels of movies he didn't originally conceptualize, extended French film remakes and movies about pre-determined historical events with bland, by-the-numbers love stories horribly wrapped around them like a 4th grader tries to wrap gift paper around the macaroni necklace he made for a mother who finds him as a constant source of hermit inducing embarrassment.

• Sadly Ebert has become wishy washy with the years, giving fawning praise and 4 stars reviews to almost everything this days. The most glaring example was his over the top review of Lars Von Trier's "Antichrist". He saw gravitas and daring intelligence in an unintendedly hilariously dumb movie, the cinematic equivalent of a essay of a prepubescent kid explaining why the girls have cooties. "Chaos reigns" my foxy ass!

• In the name of my country, I apologize for the Catwoman movie.

• Now we know why Avatar cost so much....critic's opinions aren't cheap, you know!

• Yeah, Bayformers tends to make a good bar by which to measure. At least if someone says they liked an Uwe Boll movie, you know it's because of how terrible they are intentionally. I've had a few too many people tell me that Transformers 1 and 2 were cinematic genius without being sarcastic. It was a sad day.

• Reading all that reviews gave me a deja vu. Almost 13 years ago, when Titanic premiered it was showered by deliriously ecstatic reviews that praised Cameron "the visionary" for his "awe inspiring masterpiece of epic", "in the vein of Gone with the Wind", "that the movie was a must see spectacle", "a one in a generation film event" and blah, blah. Then 16 weeks later as the n 1 movie in USA and the world, the backlash started: the same critics that were singing their Titanic hosannas now were seeing the movies flaws everywhere. The love story was lame, one dimensional characters, risible dialogue, Jack was a Marie Sue, a Harlequin novel at the sea, too long of a movie, cheesy, teenage fan-girl porn, Leo the teen idol, and they even realise the sublime corniness of "My heart will go on". And it got worst after all that Oscars and Cameron screaming "I'm the king of the world". The final agreement was that only the FX "save" the movie trite plot. Overrated was the final word. History repeats itself? This time with a more expensive budget and less chances of recover the inversion?

• Sweet jesus, I had no idea that he actually gave 'Knowing' four stars. I think I'm now in agreement that pretty much all credibility he had in my mind is now gone.

• It's true enough, I agree completely, though it's a matter of trying to find those decent ones in the absolute mire of their job. They seem to change their opinions quickly and for little reason, it makes it a little trickier to find something worthwhile and useful.

• For all of its apparent flaws, "Avatar" still doesn't have robot testicles or a pair of Jim Crowbots.

• Roger Ebert and Empire gave this film glowing reviews, thats enough for me. James Cameron's films were never known for their plots or character development, however, the man excels at creating brilliant, imaginative visual spectacles and memorable set pieces.

• I was going to give this a go until I saw the run time of 2.5+ hours. Fuck that. I'll be detoxing a little more than halfway through it.

• A weekend doesn't go by without Ebert giving something four stars, sometimes two or three films. All it does is put Avatar on the same pedestal as... KNOWING, for fuck's sake.

• The thing is that we are a bunch of nerds discussing a movie. We like things like plot, and story, and good acting. But most people don't. They go to movies to turn off their brains for 2 hours. James Cameron is not really making this movie for us. He made it mainly for himself. The whole world was brought out of his head; and he wanted to use this brand new technology, so it will catch on. Hope he succeeds because I love IMAX. I will also be going to see Avatar at the Palisades mall (closest IMAX to where I live) just not on opening night.

• Agreed. TF wasn't as good looking as people claim, and in that case the story in the second one wasn't just bad, it was offensively bad. It was cynical and seemed derisive of its audience. The plot of the first one was dumb but it was harmlessly dumb, so the decent visuals could compensate. With Avatar, while the plot looks tired as hell, if it at least is simple and inobtrusive then this flick will be worth seeing.

• I can't remember who said it, but one critic said that "the job of the critic is not to tell you that a movie you want to go see is good or bad; you will have your own opinion. A critics jobs is to tell you about movies that you would never have heard of like [Little Miss Sunshine]". That is what critics are useful for now.

• I think the difference between AVATAR and TRANSFORMERS 2 is simple. Transformers had great effing special effects, but the art and designs didn't play to everybody (Sure that robot looks real, but I wont care if I dont like teh design of the robot). Also, transformers 2 seemed to go out of its way to be a laughably or embarrassingly bad film (Script, characters, continuity, logic what?). Avatar's special effects are great, but I think its the art direction and imagination in the design of the world as a whole that is making people really happy with it. Also Avatar just seems to be a cliche/mediocre movie underneath the shiny. Not exceptionally bad. Easier to hide under the pretty. For the record! I enjoyed TF1 for what it was, and am a fan of the character designs. Aside from some small moments of enjoyment in TF2 (soundwave and ravage omfg fanboi)I can barely sit though that movie. I agree with Rob on Avatar. I may see it, don't expect to like its story (Seriously? Unobtanium? Someone wrote that? And other people were like "yeah, that's ok, lets go with it), but being a artist/animator I'm sure I will be interested in seeing the world they have created. I do not like furries.

• Oh yes! But Cameron has her on the street because people love the Aliens, not because she was the best actress for the job. Her reasons and his reasons need not be the same reasons. And they aren't.

• I liked FFVII's plot... ... the first time I saw it, when it was called Evangelion.

• I got tickets for an IMAX 3d regardless. I'm actually with rob, i'm usually unwilling to throw away story for visual spectacle but if it involves good acting as well then I'm sold. I'll see how it turns out this friday... well deserved after a med school biochemistry exam.

• I would classify that as Sigourny Weaver whoring herself out for money.

• I dunno. I just see her in the trailers, or on The Daily Show and I think 'now there's a woman who'd rather be anywhere else but got offered a boatload of money to do a movie she really wasn't interested in doing with a guy she can't stand to work with.'

• Hmm, seems that my visible tags did not work! Maybe using brackets will get them to work. [jazzhands]Oh my gawd! Avatar is so kewl![/jazzhands]

• I am not in agreement. To me one word in caps is simply putting emphasis on the word. If you want jazz hands then we need a jazzhands tag! <jazzhands>Oh my gawd! Avatar is so kewl!</jazzhands> Of course, given that sentence maybe it should be the jizzhands tag! :-D

• So we're in agreement? One word in CAPS shall now mean "Say while making jazz hands".

• Is the use of Sigourney Weaver really whoring to the whole Alien franchise fan base? She is, after all, a fairly talented actress. Why does using her in this film constitute whoring a particular fan base? Is it because her character looks exactly like she does? If so I do not see it that way. Just because one can create any character with CGI does not automatically mean that one has to create an imaginary character. With the advanced state of CGI I like that one can "clone" an actor, as is, into an animated film.

• +1! I hate how just about any word typed in all caps, which used to signifcy emphasis of the word, is now constituted by so many as to be screaming.

• If you see this movie opening weekend be sure to have some fun >AFTER< the movie is over. As you walk out of the theater with your friends, and if there is a line of people waiting to see it, be sure to drop a spoiler. As I was leaving the theater, I said in a loud by excited voice, "Oh my god! I cannot believe it!" At this point people will look at you in any number of various moods because they think that you are about to ruin the movie for them. But, after a small pause you continue on with this, "Darth Vader is Luke's father!" I did this for Star Trek and the people in line looked like they were about to kill me, but once the spoiler dropped they all laughed! Give this a try for this movie or any other highly anticipated movie.

• In a race to the death for the lowest common denominator! Bay's use of Megan Fox has him in the lead but Cameron's gratuitous use of Sigourney Weaver to whore to the Alien franchise fans has kicked him into overdrive!!! Friday! Friday!! Friday!!!

• For me it is an issue of there simply being too many critics out there. I think that critics still serve a valuable purpose, but one needs to find a critic with similar tastes, likes, and dislikes. Or, you need to find a critic who is exactly the opposite of you. Once you have done that then their reviews will steer you in the right direction.

• Well, it is Michael Bay versus James Cameron! :-D

• In my opinion even a really great trailer for a really crappy movie cannot really hide the quality of the film. When I saw the trailers for Transformers (both I and II) I thought that the trailers were pretty impressive, but I still thought that the movies would suck like a black hole. And, in my opinion, they did suck like black holes. Yes, I have been duped a few times over the years, but overall I have found that most of the time my feelings evoked by a trailer are the same as those evoked by the film.

• You were doing so well in your attempt to shill for the movie until you said you were french.

• The story is very classic, but Cameron never pretended to do anything else. The story could be considered to be "simple", but the screenplay is as usual with Cameron written very well (like the first Star Wars, the complexity of the script has for result the "simplicity" that compose de power of the storytelling). And the love story is not the most important aspect of the story. It's a story about hero's journey, initiation, encounter with the Goddess in the World Tree...and the title, AVATAR... This movie is a quintessence of Mythology, more than Star Wars or Matrix. I'm french, and I've seen Avatar 3 days before you, bande de ricains!

• As a perfect example, here's an excerpt from USA Today's review. "For all the grandeur and technical virtuosity of the mythical 3-D universe Cameron labored for years to perfect, his characters are one-dimensional, rarely saying anything unexpected. But for much of the movie, that hardly matters."

• I applaud the tone of Rob's movie trailer reviews. With mrcranky.com gone, where else can a person go to get the hate?

• Dude, you don't have to apologize. You are 100% correct. A trailer should make you want to see the movie or not and the BIGGEST draw is the 3D and you can't mimic that in the trailer. So if that's what critics and everyone else are wetting themselves over, I'm just as guilty as you are man. I hated those blue cartoons, and I'm not trying to put on no 3D glasses. Bottom line is movie theaters need money badly that's why they financed this movie. With our 103 inch TV's and Blu-ray players folks are hard pressed to go to the theater so everything and their mother is 3D now. So you go on right on hating my friend.

• uh, if reviews were based on "how it looks" then transformers would have gotten five stars. And yet i still can't bring myself to believe that this silly story is any good at all but ill just have to wait and see.

• That's how I read it...

• Ebert HATES 3-D movies. If he watched Avatar, by putting 3-D glasses over his own glasses, and loved it enough to give it four stars. It's gotta be worth checking out. Either that, or a big truck full of cash from FOX is outside of his house. He also likened it, to when he first laid eyes on Star Wars in '77.

• Agreed. 100%

• I can always tell from a trailer if I'll like or dislike a film, rarely am I surprised.

• Hey now, you know that FFVII's visuals were "OMFG AWESOME" when it came out. :) That said, I totally agree that visuals can't make up for a weak story. I have no desire to see this blue cat version of Ferngully/Dances with Wolves.

• But Transformers doesn't look good either. I will watch 2 hours of sizzle over steak but for god's sake, give me decent sizzle. Transformers is just a mess. The action is as poorly choreographed, weightless, and impactless as anything I've ever seen.

• The only thing it tells you is the quality of the trailer or the marketability of the movie. Conversely, shit movies often have great trailers. Look at Transformers.

• Never Bet Against Cameron. The fucking dude is Rasputin.

• You actually thought that Final Fantasy VII's plot was GOOD? Instead of overly convoluted, nonsensical, glacially paced, and insanely stupid? You sir, no longer deserve your right to have an opinion.

• When I use it it means "Say while making jazz hands".

• I allways assumed that intejected caps was an emphasis (used where one would generally use itallics) and screaming was denoted by a sustained use of caps throughout.

• I have a few friends who just LOVE Bayformers. I have to re-evaluate them as friends... But yea, I have a good cross-section that usually gives me a good feedback.

• Yes but only because it's my spleen that's screaming. ....what?....what other definition?... OH! Irritable. Well, that's an odd second definition. I guess the heart is where love comes from and the spleen is where my hatred of George Lucas was born.

• Indeed, I tend to be around a lot of people who like similar things to me, but still have a varied enough opinion that I can get a good multi-sided argument on whether or not it was any good. As for Rob...well, yeah, I imagine he's got people who screech at him everywhere. I never want to be well known on the internet. Ever.

• Screaming at me in ALL CAPS = splenetic. Congrats.

• And more relevant and more fitting to me. If you assume that the people I surround myself with on Facebook and Twitter are of reasonably like minds. And I think that's safe to say of most of us. Most of us don't add people we hate to Facebook and Twitter. Except Rob. I bet Rob's Facebook is FULL of people that he doesn't like.

• I couldn't agree more. Their usefulness has long since passed. Want a number of little reviews to judge if you want to see it? Facebook or just put up a message on Twitter. They'd be a little more worthwhile.

• Isn't that what we do? We make up our minds to see or not see something? To eat or not eat that thing on our plate? To listen to the radio or the CD player in the car? To drive to Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks? Aren't all of these things decisions we have to make? How has deciding NOT to see a movie based on the weak-ass trailers wrong? How is deciding NOT to see a movie because the director is a raving douche who doesn't let his actors sit or pee or move for ten hours a day because 'he's a VISIONARY!' wrong? We are all entitled to decide for ourselves on any basis we wish. That's the foundation of our freedoms. And Empire Magazine? That wanna-be Entertainment Weekly of a rag of a magazine?

• I have enormous respect for Roger Ebert, but 4-star reviews from him are anything but "rare." It's a club about as exclusive as the phone book.

• I really do think that the age where the critic was relevant have passed us by. I get better feedback by posting "Should I see Avatar?" on my Facebook page.

• I think "splenetic internet fanboy" is my new favorite phrase. From the review in Empire Magazine: "Avatar is unequivocally, completely, 100% the film that has been percolating in James Cameron's head for the last fourteen years. It is not, in all probability, the film that you had in yours when you first heard that the man who directed Aliens and The Terminator was returning to sci-fi with a movie so ambitious that he had to build the technology to make it happen. If you can let go of your version and embrace Cameron's – if you're not, in other words, one of those splenetic internet fanboy types who've apparently made their minds up about Avatar before seeing it – then Avatar is a hugely rewarding experience: rich, soulful and exciting in the way that only comes from seeing a master artist at work."

• *shrug*...

• Also worth noting is that Avatar has been nominated for a Golden Globe, and if Mark Evanier's blog is to be believed, it will be nominated for an Oscar as well. For Best Picture. Which, again, may not mean much when you judge some of the other nominations and the Globes and Oscars in general, but it could bode well for future sci-fi films.

• Which is pretty much why critics have about as much useful opinion as anyone else. You're better off just finding out from a few friends if they like it instead.

• I shall be walking up to every one of them at Dragon Con and saying "I LOVE your Smurf costume!"

• Sorry Rob, but I don't think people are capable of being 'chill' when it comes to their personal opinions and how hard they end up judging something, following by attacking like pitbulls who don't agree with what they do. It's kind of human nature, really, to just go for the throat of anyone who isn't in their little circle. It's the entire reason why Trolls exist. As for Avatar? Personally, to me it's going to be a win/win scenario. I've been hearing the constant stuff about how the story is absolutely atrocious. I already figured that out by the trailers and the 'Dances With Wolves' theme. I honestly couldn't give two bits about graphical content if I'm being told a pretty amazing story. But I'm also not like most people (I call them the Graphic Burnouts, the folks who hate story but couldn't get enough of extra detailed blood hitting a floor, for instance). Transformers II rode to success on the wave of those types of people. I don't agree with them, but not much to do about that. If anyone makes Avatar a success, it's going to be them. Success for Avatar means Sci Fi might get back into Hollywood's good graces and we'll start to see more of them in the queue. Statistically speaking, one of those future movies might have a story that doesn't blow. That's a win for me. On the other hand, in the same way I kind of enjoyed seeing the Segway miraculously not catch the world by storm, this might not either. Sure, it'll do well, might even nail the Top Ten movies of all time, but if it doesn't? I'm not exactly going to be surprised here. In that sense, I get to see someone else claiming their visionary idea will change the world fall a bit flat. And in a way, that amuses me too. (Yeah, Schadenfreude, but ah well.) Anyways, just keep doing what you do, Rob. You do just fine. And here's to an interesting weekend of seeing what happens with Avatar.

• You know I kinda feel the same way. I am hesitant to get all weepy and drooly over this movie or go into it thinking it will be the greatest movie ever. Someone else's opinion doesn't matter a huge deal to me, so I really couldn't care less about Roger Ebert. I imagine it will be successful, I hope it is because it will mean that the whole process of film making may be changed. You have movies that come along every once in a while that do that and that progression is the way it should be. What I don't appreciate is sacrificing a good storyline and good characters for amazing special effects. I love the effects as much as the next geek but if I am paying money to see a movie I damn well better be entertained. I am always skeptical about previews anyway; nothing is stopping the film makers from putting the best 30 seconds of the movie into a preview so you think it will kick ultimate ass, so yeah, not impressed with the previews but I am willing to give this movie a chance. If nothing else I need to be familiar with who the blue people are walking around the next Con I attend =)

• What bugs me about so many of the reviews on RT that I've read is that MOST of them are "The story sucks/is weak/is boring/is not new/is dull/is one-dimensional but BOY OH BOY it's pretty to look at and so you should go see it!" Now, if I remember correctly, didn't these same reviews DESTROY Transformers II for being all sizzle and no steak? For being pretty but pointless? Double standard much?

• I do not think that there is anything with ragging on movies based on trailers. After all, the purpose of a trailer is to sell you on the movie. And if the trailer cannot do that then, to me at least, it says something about the quality of the movie. Or rather, the lack of quality of the movie.

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