Avatar / Dances with Wolves
 

Over the last year, since the hype from 'Avatar' started REALLY building with previews (and since that fateful "South Park" episode) I had chuckled but not really agreed with those who compared "Avatar" with "Dances With Wolves."

The last time I had seen "Dances" was in the mid-90s and I didn't remember much, except it was extremely long, and without much dialogue. But not much else.

I just finished watching it on DVD and I have to say...

I WILL OFFICIALLY SLAP ANYONE WHO COMPARES THESE TWO MOVIES.
They are nothing alike...not even in the simplest story outlines.

'Avatar' at it's core was about a soldier who's mission was to subversively integrate himself into an indigenous people.

'Dances' at it's core is about a single man who loses his will to survive in the world he knows, so he leaves that world and finds himself (spiritually and culturally) at home in a 'new' world.

Sure, they both find happiness there, but but Costner's character is never *asked* to do so, never *asked* to go against his new found happiness.

I dunno...it's too complicated to explain in just a short post, but, with both of these movies fresh in my memory, I can say with confidence that the comparison is obnoxious and unfounded.


Now "Pocahontas" and "Avatar" is a different story...

;)

This is the one that I read a million times, not dances with wolves. I've yet to hear anyone defend Avatar on it either :LOL:

Crap, now I have to watch "Pocahontas?"

we need spoiler tags in here so i can post this

sec



OK

*SPOILER IN LINK*
http://www.thefunnyblog.org/wp-content/upl..._pocahontas.jpg

isn't more like Ferngully????


in essence Avatar is the savior/warrior plot that has been done countless times in storytelling

^^^

Countless time, for sure.
I just hate the reductive argument that it's a rip off.

Not to go too deep, but Cameron designed an entire planet, ecosystem, indigenous life...a CAMERA SYSTEM, etc.

I dunno. I don't love "Avatar" or anything, just sick of people discounting all the hard work and thought that went into it.

I love the movie up until they burn the tree down.

All the bells and whistles and think tanks and crap are all awesome and I love the visuals..... I have seen the dark side of us humans enough times, we suck, I get it.....

just make the blue people fly around on their lizards and do cool shit with spaceships for 2 hours....thats all i want to see....with some kind of geek talk narration by Morgan freemen and we have a juggernaught hit movie that would break every box office record ever...including Avatar


Oh and i said this before in another thread about Avatar. if you are going to name an imaginary ore for your movie....do not insult the people with a vocabulary higher than 130 with a name like UNOBTAINIUM.....duh lets just open Word and type in impossible to get and see what the thesaurus suggests.....


UNOBTAINIUM: its more than your daddy's engineering catch phrase

:rofl:

Somehow I felt as though I had seen the story before withAvatar, not the characters or planet, or monsters...just the story. Somehow I was reminded of cowboys and indians, or africans and white men, or lawrence of arabia, etc...

sure, the actual names, places, colors, era, mechanics are all new, but the story seemed familar...white guy goes to blend in with people of color who are living off the land so that he can help other corporate types take advantage of natives and steal their oil or land or well made pizza...then he somehow finds the happiness he never had as a white guy living amoungst white folks...so he becomes one of them and fights the corporate meanies, winning the battle and saving the day and lifestyle of the natives... and he also gets the girl along with a functional set of legs!

i just know i have seen this someplace many times before....tarzan?

bottom line is that this is/was a great movie, creative and well done and will spur several sequels which should also be hand crafted...but the story itself it a familar message we have seen before many times....mother nature knows best and the innocent natural way trumps the corporate culture of greed.

That infamous crossed out summary of Pocahontas with Avatar pieces thrown in is terrible. It basically capitalizes on all of the similarities one expects to find in a story about colonization (this is what you're talking about, Hirev; stories of this type first popped up over a century ago with Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad) and leaves out all the differences. It's like hearing a one sided argument, or trying to say that two movies based around basketball are the same because they both feature basketball games. I could make a nice list of all the major differences, but I've done so about a dozen times now, and I really don't want to do it again (by now I should have it saved somewhere) and then get attacked by some guy who loves to hate on Avatar because it's popular.