Ladies and gentlemen, I post here not to mock Avatar -- nor does the brilliant perverted misanthrope behind that 70-minute Phantom Menace review, either. His two-part review of Avatar isn't actually crapping on the movie, but breaking down James Cameron's utterly calculated approach to making every single aspect of the film appeal to audience's basest emotions in the simplest way possible. It's not especially creative or artful, but as the dude points out, it's totally effective, which can be seen in Avatar's ridiculous box office. It's a great watch, whether you enjoyed Avatar or not. Really! Part two's after the jump; thanks for everyone who sent this in.
30 comments
Comments
psiwire said:
Shame on James Cameron for trying to give people what they want. Luckily the public caught on to his diabolical plan and this movie was a box office disaster. Oh wait...
Zeta replied to psiwire:
"Shame on James Cameron for trying to give people what they want. Luckily the public caught on to his diabolical plan and this movie was a box office disaster. Oh wait..."
Popularity equals quality. Just look at how much money Transformers 2 made, it must be a great film, too!
psiwire replied to Zeta:
Movie "quality" is in the eye of the beholder. But that wasn't my point.
The essence of the review was 'James Cameron tried to cravenly engineer something that people were going to enjoy.' Well, mission accomplished. Every non-internet person I know who saw it really liked it.
Was Cameron supposed to sit around after Titanic and contemplate just what kind of movie he could spend hundreds of millions of dollars making that people were just going to hate and not go see?
Tom replied to psiwire:
That is not what I got from the review at all. What I got was Cameron went for simplistic story telling. The bad guys were two dimensional and the plot by the numbers.
I recall back when Cameron did Aliens how Burke, the company man, actually started out the nice guy but over time his true colors came out. That made the character complex. In this case we know the company man is just a big selfish meanie and the military commander is a racist tool who just wants to kill blue aliens.
All the bad guys? White. The main alien? Voiced by a black actor. The protagonist? White guy who takes the side of the natives and leads them, because lord knows they can't lead themselves. We saw this with Dances With Wolves, Pocohontas, The Last Samurai, etc.
comboman replied to Tom:
"I recall back when Cameron did Aliens how Burke, the company man, actually started out the nice guy but over time his true colors came out."
What I find interesting is that in Aliens, the evil company man wanted to keep the aliens alive, but the space Marines led by Sigorney Weaver wanted to "nuke them from orbit". In Avatar, the evil company man wanted the space Marines to kill the aliens, but Signorney wanted to save them. Throw in some drop-ships, mech-suits and a tough-as-nails latina Marine and it's pretty much the same movie with a couple of roles reversed.
Interositor said:
I agree with what you say - good for him for giving people what they want - doesn't change the fact that I don't want to be like, or like-minded with such tasteless people. So many ways I am not that, with better things to enjoy. Cameron made some great ones, but his recent output? Well, shit - he's is such an accomplished filmmaker he went straight from happenstance to enemy action, skipping coincidence - I'll be wary of the king of the world in future.
DoctorSmashy said:
This man is a genius. Not only is this video hilarious, it's a pretty good deconstruction of why Avatar is so successful. I have to watch this Phantom Menace review you speak of.
DoctorSmashy replied to DoctorSmashy :
Just finished watching the PM review. It's better than the film itself, this guy is a better critic than most paid ones.
BStu said:
How has this guy not gotten a TV deal yet? And seriously, if you haven't seen his Phantom Menace video it is SO worth the time. Best 70 minutes you'll spend this year. Then go waste more time on his Star Trek reviews which also rule. I say as someone who liked most of the TNG movies and who still can't really refute any of his devastating take downs. His First Contact review is a revelation.
Krakes replied to BStu:
Has he done any reviews beyond these? Where can I find them? Why can't so-called "professional" reviewers be this insightful and funny?
BStu replied to Krakes:
Yeah, there are quite a few on his YouTube channel, but the Red Letter Media site (URL is at the end of Part 2, I think) has them collected for easy viewing. Best movie critic this side of the MST3K crew.
Andy said:
Hey its just a movie... I don't ever remember it being advertised as high brow or 'thought provoking', its just that some sad fucks decided to write stuff online about how they wanted to exist in the movie world, and a bunch of retarded media arseholes tried to take it all seriously.
This guy just takes it all to pieces in a brilliantly funny way.... check out his other reviews for more of his thoughts... Well worth the effort :-)
PJ replied to Andy:
My problem with Avatar has never really been it's content--not specifically, anyway. Visually stunning or not, it is just a movie, and the reason I've come to loathe it is more because of it's marketing campaign and the worldwide 'OMG AMAZING!@' than because of the film itself. After all, we've all endured unoriginal plotlines before and still managed to enjoy them, and Avatar is far from the worst.
But the thing that makes me want to destroy the movie and smash anything and anyone lauding it is simply that it's been shoved down our collective throats with so much force that I can't help but be repulsed by it. If the ad campaign for it had just been like 'Here's a movie, we think it's pretty sweet, maybe you will, too.' I would have seen it the weekend it came out. Instead I waited until it became necessary to see it to properly argue with people like my brother, who think it is somehow the pinnacle of human achievement. It isn't, god dammit. It's just a fucking movie.
I hate hype.
Neodymium said:
This guy pretty much covered all the bases. Many that i had already made note of, but a couple that i hadn't really considered.
He did forget to also mention that releasing a blockbuster in the winter basically guarantees Oscars.
Riven Armor said:
That was a solid bullseye. I'm not sure what's he's got in store for part II after ripping...well...everything.
I wonder how many people saw Avatar for reasons like mine - the special effects, things blowing up - without pretending that it was a great work of cinema.
do4m said:
I wonder if Avatards are almost as dangerous as Twitards?
The movie is ok... I still don't get the HYPE.
Shane no AKA said:
Watched this last night and laughed my ass off, but when I see comments on how these reviews are justr meant to be funny, but no, serious well thought out points are made1
Mock26 said:
I love the line about a 3D movie with 1D characters! That sums up the movie so perfectly!
nick replied to Mock26:
absolutely true. and a 1D storyline to go with it.
Anonymous said:
i thought this sucked and was a waste of my time..PHAIL..im gonna go mess with my sexbot
Manwards said:
Yep, that's exactly how I felt about it. It succeeds on several levels, but at the foundation it's shallow and simplistic, and I could never get past that to really enjoy it.
Em M. said:
Wow, I'm really impressed by this review. I admit, seeing as how I felt exactly the same as this guy, I might be somewhat biased (Avatar is an okay movie, but it's nowhere near the masterpiece everyone else seems to think it is, largely because it's so damn simplistic and manipulative), but this delved into all sorts of interesting, intelligent angles AND was still hilarious. This guy is my new movie hero.
epicurious said:
I like that he didn't trash it like everyone was expecting after the Phantom Menace review, which figures seeing as he admitted its fine if flawed and derivative popcorn flick. Who knew an analysis would still be entertaining?
Brian Hurrel said:
I really enjoyed Avatar, but this guy is funny.
CreepyKiki said:
Wow, I was 2 minutes into this video and was hitting the Subscribe button. Thank you for sharing this. I still haven't seen Avatar but I love funny movie reviewers.
Marcus Aurelius said:
Reasons why Avatar is the greatest movie of all time.
1 extremely platitudinous unoriginal boring cliche story
2 boring lifeless cliche 1 dimensional characters
3 horrible unintentionally funny dialogue
4 glaring and trite cliche themes
5 unoriginal Na'vi and creatures designs Native American thundercat nightelf anime furries
6 unoriginal environments floating mountains same old plants and trees only bigger
7 plot is a copy of thousands other stories that does nothing new at all
8 boring dull and cliche action scenes, due to the predictable story and soulless 1-D characters
If the DVD was out I'm sure he would have gone over the other blatant mistakes Cameron made with this OVERRATED piece of shit movie.
passerby said:
Things Phantom Menace Critic taught me:
1. A carefully developed Gaian worldview is something all films have. This is why Avatar is exactly like *insert past film here*
2. All human have an urge to fuck long eared possums, which is how the femme Navi is a perfect sexual fantasy.
3. The most insulting thing to today's military is to openly state their worldview.
4. Text is everything, subtext is nothing.
Dr. Rocketscience replied to passerby:
Y'know, for a second there, I thought you were implying that Avatar had subtext. For a second.
passerby replied to Dr. Rocketscience:
For a second there, you were right.
For a second.
NobodyImportant said:
The one thing I really can't understand is how nobody mocked the incredibly sexualized imagery of the dragon conquering.
