They didn't have any money left for a proper script?

Rating: 1/10 (24 January 2011)

I'm going to be brutal: Avatar is an epic let down.
A perfectly engaging movie turns into a run-of-the-mill action flick once we get to spend just a few moments on Pandora.
Vaguely reminds me of the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations". It too start out beautifully, then lapses into a standard surf pop pastiche. But at least it has other verses to anticipate for... Avatar never manages to lure you back in once it dawns on you that you really ain't getting a better script than this.
When exactly the downward spiral begins depends largely on the viewer's expectations of what constitutes a decent science fiction movie. If you can accept that interstellar travel is possible in less than 150 years from now (quick and dirty patent fix would be to add zero), you'll get to Pandora no problem.
But alas, I simply couldn't take it seriously after the "mental link" argument. Your mileage may vary. If you try to intellectualize Avatar, you will be sorry. It's an expensive show case what modern CGI can do these days, but to go with a plot of this caliber in the year 2009, and still manage to convince A LOT of folks that they're watching a masterpiece, is beyond me.
It actually pains me to realize how much time, money and talent was wasted in creating this. That's the proper ecology lesson I'm gonna walk away with after seeing Avatar.
If you want a valid message just watch "Idiocracy". Films like Avatar take us yet one step closer in reaching the heights of pure and utter retardedness.
I'm sure that's a merit too, though.
PS. If you for some reason can't remember why Avatar sucked, here be few reminders:
-to accept "mental link" explanation is the same as to believe in magic
But seeing that humans can suddenly travel in light speed, I would not be overtly surprised if I was told that by then we are also able to somehow copy human memory/consciousness onto an alien-human-hybrid's blank brain... But remote control? That's just.. retarded.
-"Oh.. He's a warrior? Never seen one before! Surely we can learn something from him! My daughter will teach you about our ways. Although... your ways surely helped in getting my other daughter killed already. Well, I guess it's different this time around. Have fun now kids! No funny business though!"
-the biggest mineral deposit is located right under the tribe's village / Jake is the chosen one
Of course he can ride the biggest dragon, silly Cameron. Only _everyone_ realizes that when she gives him (=us) the lecture. And that sex will be inevitable.
-tribe chief sounds distinctly American Indian and her wife Afro-American / Na'vis are such considerate killers
Is it possible to make it any more obvious that we are now dealing with the Most Benevolent Oppressed People of All Times... on _any_ planet!
-why is the forest lighting up every which way whenever our couple's there but it's pitch dark when Jake's trying to survive his first night out in the woods solo?
Suppose he was just too far off from the fairy land at that point? Good thing he still managed to recognize the plant which would provide fuel for his torch. Part of the training? Was he just lucky? We don't know.
Even if that goo hadn't lit up, our semi-naked native girl would surely have come to the rescue, right? Not least because, as we are told, they are _everywhere_.
-the sex scene
Please just pan away and let it remain a mystery. We have hard time enough thinking how hybrids could ever hope to produce offspring.
-ridiculous, embarrassing and endless "homages" to other movies
-new age chanting, swaying and other intellectually insulting hippy moments that scream: nature is a mystical things, do not try to understand it, just _feel_ it!
-if you must have one-dimensional archetype-like characters, at least don't make them do something they probably wouldn't do
Why would the corporate head suddenly care about what happens to the natives when he obviously hasn't cared before? And even with a sudden change of heart, would he seriously think an hour's chaotic powwow would help much, let alone dissolve the situation? You would figure that he'd at the very least tell his men to stay put, and maybe back off a bit (he's still in charge of the whole show, right?)
-the antagonist crash-lands right next to the portolab, as do Jake and Neytiri!
-arrows pierce armored glass when you _really_ want it; half a dozen men with machine guns fail to take out an alien that lands right in front of them; floating maglev mountains; high-speed horses in a jungle terrain; personal dragons; running on tree trunks... and so on, ad infinitum.
"Gotta use 'em cause the CGI guys already created them!"
Bottom line: just because 10ft tall bipeds (and other alien species for that matter) _can_ move like our Earthly comrades doesn't mean they - like us - wouldn't be affected to things like slippery moss, breaking bark, etc.
It's like everyone on Pandora are on auto-pilot or high on meth! Na'vis aren't supermen. Only undead lack instinct of self preservation...
And last but not least: you don't think Jake would have insisted on getting a new pair of legs _before_ signing up?
1) It would establish good will from the get-go. 2) Costs would be insignificant. 3) Fully operational man would in all likelihood provide a much better future investment for a corporation who will clearly always need experienced and unethical ops "such as" Jake. 4) Oh yeah, and the the fact that they _need_ him!

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I could go on and on, but since no one's paying me to point its many faults, I'll just stop now.