Avatar

My opponent concedes to several of my arguments, while making several of his own. His first, a rejection of my premise that a film has to be original to be awesome… "I reject my opponent's assertion that a film has to be "original" in order to be awesome" "A better standard is simply whether an artwork presents its themes well or not. " I agree that originality is not the only factor in weighing awesomeness and that the entirety of the film must be taken into consideration. With that understood, I reiterate my statement regarding Avatar's lack of originality, the rest of the film is nice to look at, but isn't quite awesome at any deeper level. Think of the Mona Lisa, without the mystique…[1] Or the Venus de Milo…with her arms…[2] These are "Awesome works of art". The contention regarding how to gauge ‘originality' in any medium is a subjective one. The criteria for what makes a work of art awesome should certainly be dependant on some level of originality, though with amazing special effects, cutting edge 3d visuals, and a ‘serviceable' plot line, Avatar doesn't quite reach that level. I will concede to my opponent that a better standard is whether an artwork presents its themes well… For Avatar its theme was wrapped in a nice shiny package that was great to look at, but the story was predictable and filled with more montages of cool scenery than interesting plot twists If Avatar had come out 10 years ago, that would have been awesome. But after so many special effects movies, the audience needs to ask for more. I think the original star wars trilogy (4, 5, 6) is closer to awesome than the prequels, if any of them really can even be called awesome works of art. Almost identical to the originals in theme and relative special effects, the modern trilogy just doesn't have anything ‘special'. "Annalee Newitz is a fool. " All 50 words I've read from Ms. Newitz seemed reasonable, perhaps provocative, but certainly within grammatical compliance. My opponent's assertion is unverified and must be proven, or disregarded. "…In this era of supercomputing [Avatar} still took a decade to make, and entailed the coordination of thousands of highly skilled experts from across many scientific disciplines, is an awe-inspiring effort. It's the Hollywood equivalent of the Manhattan Project. " This is a pretty lofty statement by my opponent and he is partially correct. The special effects in Avatar are very cool. The Manhattan Project however created something tangible, while Avatar is just very cool special effects that overshadow a serviceable plot. It's difficult therefore to compare these projects in any way other than the amount of money spent on them. My opponent then spends the rest of his rebuttal conceding, and then refuting my generalization of recycled themes and archetypes. He attempts to refute the archetype arguments by writing a detailed and lengthy analysis of these one-dimensional characters, in the hope that it will make them appear to have actual depth. As a fan of over analysis, I know how easy it is to make anything seem complex and deep if one wants it to. So in that spirit lets look at some obviously one-dimensional characters and make them seem like something more: White Spy – Spy Vs. Spy (Mad Magazine)[3] While culturally connected to the other white spies around him, and thus pressured into an unending conflict of death and destruction with the black spies, White spy has, at times, seemed to be regretful, even remorseful, of his actions. Having blown up, crushed, mangled, and obliterated each other for decades, often we see White spy (or black spy) attempting to maim or injure his foe with minimal efficiency. Is this a sign of his desire for peace with the other spies? Is this an attempt to perhaps try to save the black spies? Because the white spy is the silent and deadly type, and refused an interview, it is difficult to ascertain. But it is clear that should the pressure of the cultural influences surrounding him change, he may have a desire to change as well, and this may lead to an era of peace in the spy vs. spy world. Mr. Peanut – Planters nuts mascot [4] With his top hat and monocle you can always tell Mr. Peanut is a peanut with class. Not only is Mr. Peanut well dressed he is on the front of containers of planters nuts. Mr. Peanut may seem calm and smooth in all of his commercials and promo videos, but behind those monocle eyes, lives the pain of unsalted peanut demons. Mr. Peanut knows he should be grateful for all his success, but he never has been comfortable with lending his image to the sales of his kind for consumption. He tells himself that if he didn't do it, someone else would, but it barely gets him to sleep these days. He's often reminded of the time he was at the bar with Mr. Potatohead. Mr. Peanut was asked to see if Mr. Potato head might be interested in being the face of a product out of Idaho…the next thing Mr. Peanut recalls was being in the emergency room, having been shot in the leg. Needless to say, Potatohead and Mr. Peanut are no longer friends. I could go on… Neither of these characters is interesting at all, but if you added some really cool special effects, they could become a lot more interesting. The plot of Avatar is interesting enough that it carries some cool special effects, but note the amount of time you will just be watching special effects, to distract from the lack of anything interesting in the plot or characters. To reiterate, the special effects are cool but Avatar lacks anything special or interesting (other than special effects) to make it, "an awesome work of art". So as of right now, besides for some special effects, my opponent and I agree on only one thing that is interesting about Avatar, the last line of his response, "D-rape: interesting" Other than that, Avatar is just recycled American film conventions with a sprinkle of sugar(perhaps a pound of it), and not "an awesome work of art". Vote Con. [1] . http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] . http://en.wikipedia.org... [3] . http://en.wikipedia.org... [4] . http://en.wikipedia.org...