Comments on: Dances With Aliens: Haunted Vet Redux

By: tyree

tyree — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 07:54:52 +0000

So what we are getting is another “Conservative America is Bad” morality play brought to us by the people who don’t think Roman Polanski was guilty of “rape rape”.

Pathetic

By: boqueronman

boqueronman — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:35:32 +0000

You’re right. The trailer tells you more than you wanted to know. It’s a shame that the extended Cameron sabbatical from feature films has apparently resulted in a $500 million Captain Planet. The villains are clearly the Big Corporation/U.S. Marines pitted against an environmentally conscious race of aliens. But at least the objects of adoration for Dances With Wolves, while wildly idealized, were human beings. I’m afraid rooting for the aliens against the humans is simply a bridge too far. Not even any peripheral interest in the film making technology will cause me a buy a ticket to this one.

By: Knucklehead

Knucklehead — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:35:31 +0000

Not that I know a darned thing about mass tastes in pop culture or movies or the marketing of movies to mass pop culture, but my crystal ball says “Heaven’s Gate” redux. If it cost $500M it will lose at least $200M. I saw some commercial (trailers, they’re called, correct?) for it and it looked lame. Maybe the 3D will save it, but I doubt it.

By: MisterBixby

MisterBixby — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:07:09 +0000

Um … to clarify, the movies have similar names, not the overblown directors

By: MisterBixby

MisterBixby — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:44:23 +0000

You’re right, of course. I’m an idiot. I got two movies by way overblown directors with similar names (M. Night Shyamalan is directing the other Avatar) and a little bit of knowledge mixed with an overabundance of arrogance is a bad bad combination.

By: Fat Man

Fat Man — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:18:49 +0000

Sigh. I mean do they have to. I guess they do “as a dog returneth to his vomit”.

I hated “Dances with Wolves,” on cinematic grounds. I called it dances with bad lighting.

As for the tribes, we beat them in the 19th century, we can do it again. Reservations, firewater, and christian missionaries.

By: Shannon Love

Shannon Love — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:26:16 +0000

MisterBixby,

You know this movie is a film adaptation of the Nickelodeon cartoon Avatar the Airbender, right?

No that’s another movie called “Avatar:The Last Airbender.” It’s a fantasy set in a Buddhist inspired cosmology. The original was quite good. At the end of the series [spoiler warning] the main character had to wrestle with the moral dilemma of whether to kill the main villain to keep him from launching a genocidal war. They wimped out in the end by whipping out a magic wand that negated the necessity of killing the villain but they at least presented the moral conflict as one presenting no easy solution.

As to this Avatar, I think we can slap a, “Script approved by Joseph Stalin” sticker on it and call it done. From the preview it does present the standard, “military in the thrall of evil capitalist corporations”

By: tehag

tehag — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:10:23 +0000

“It filled Kevin Costner’s wallet to overflowing, won a lot of Oscars”

While I agree with you on the (suspected) content, I don’t think I can condemn the man or film for appealing to popular, if misguided, tastes in an effort to make lots of money.

First I head of Avatar, it reminded me of “Call Me Joe,” too, if a bit remolded for the modern area.

So: will “handicapped is another culture” protestors disagree with a film that suggests leglessness is not desirable?

By: Michael Kennedy

Michael Kennedy — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:56:51 +0000

I hated Dances with Wolves for its cartoonish depiction of the cavalry. My kids liked it but probably missed the message. I suspect the same will occur with this movie. I prefer “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon” thus dating myself badly.

By: MisterBixby

MisterBixby — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:44:48 +0000

You know this movie is a film adaptation of the Nickelodeon cartoon Avatar the Airbender, right? As much information as you would like to know on the story universe is available.

By: Angie Schultz

Angie Schultz — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 06:10:39 +0000

Actually, no, I didn’t see that movie (Dances with Wolves). But I did read the story. I couldn’t remember its name or author, but Wikipedia helped me out.

It’s “Call Me Joe” by Poul Anderson. An embittered, crippled man is a disliked member of a team in a space station orbiting Jupiter. His job is to control “Joe”, a manufactured life form developed to colonize Jupter.

He eventually becomes — or merges with — Joe, chooses a mate, and severs the link with the space station. The controller’s body dies. But that’s a happy ending!

Wonder if Anderson’s estate will sue.