Comments on: Hating on James Cameron: Avatar’s Anti-Fans

By: Todd Steele

Todd Steele — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 10:57:02 +0000

I saw it and didn’t think it was too bad, until the end when the natives/Avatars won, then that really changed my mood. From that point on i can’t stand it. The Avatars themselves annoyed me for some reason.

By: Matthew Margrace

Matthew Margrace — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 17:20:59 +0000

I went into this movie expecting it to be the most awesome science fiction movie since Star Wars, given the hype. While I did love the visuals and scenery(which trust me it is saying something when I praise a movie for it’s enviorments, most are cheaply done to me)I felt like it was like polishing a turd. All I saw was incredibly boring aliens that are knock-offs of Final Fantasy X’s Ronsos(what’s new someone “borrowing” from old school Final Fantasy, go figure) battling horribly designed robots over a strip mine. I’m willing to bet that all they did was open the history textbooks to the “Expansion of the America’s” chapter to develop the story. Don’t get me wrong, I can see why some people love this movie, but to me it’s the same old story of today’s day in age of stlye over substance.

By: Teufel

Teufel — Tue, 18 May 2010 10:18:00 +0000

In my opinion avatar was a great movie. Sure there was a lot of animation (the hole movie ) but the story was great. I dont understand why some people cant accept such movies like avatar because of their action and special effects…who knows what kind of movies we will see in 20 years. So please dont be so prejudiced

By: Poe Ghostal

Poe Ghostal — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:05:44 +0000

I walked into Avatar a bit predisposed to dislike it–largely stemming from reading the posts about it on ToplessRobot.com–and ended up feeling very “meh” about the whole thing–underwhelmed but not actively hating it.

My wife went in mildly interested and came out *hating* it. Every aspect of it–the plot, the visuals, the acting, the poorly-done 3D with the out-of-focus backgrounds thereby ruining the whole point of going 3D, everything. She rarely feels this passionately about this sort of thing, so it was kind of interesting to witness.

By: Martin

Martin — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:48:59 +0000

I like Avatar very much. Before watching it, i tried to be without any prejudicates. At the beginning the 3D effekts were very confusing but after a while i enjoyed it very much. The story was very crazy but all in all i like it either. I can understand others who say Avatar is the latest trash in all film productions because it is not every mans thing.

By: Marion

Marion — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 04:33:35 +0000

I did not expect to hate Avatar before I saw it. I knew it was a special effects movie with a poor plot and I was OK with that. What really disturbed me about the film though, was that the non-special-effects aspects of the film were not just poor, by deliberately dumbed-down, so that the viewers would not be distracted from their trance-like states. At least that’s what it felt like to me, and I had to continuously remind myself to keep the thinking part of my brain turned off. If this is where the film industry is headed, there are indeed reasons to be concerned.

By: Jonathan Gray

Jonathan Gray — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:52:18 +0000

Thanks Jeff, I’ll check that out. I definitely think that anti-fandom needs examination. As you suggest, it could fill in so much more of the picture. While I think it’s vital to examine fandoms, anti-fandoms will also tell us a lot about what people wish the media could look like.

By: Jeffrey Sconce

Jeffrey Sconce — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 04:06:34 +0000

Jonathan–you might want to take a look at “Movies: A Century of Failure” in my “Sleaze Artists” anthology. I wrote it in the spirit of a manifesto for film anti-fandom (plus I really, really hated Avatar). It also addresses why Cameron, in particular, is so easy to hate.

Short version: I think the turn from Fiske’s championing of “resistant readings” in extremely specific socio-historical contexts to the wholesale promotion of all fandom all the time has sidestepped a whole series of important questions concerning the media. Anti-fandom, as you term it here, strikes me as a residual dissatisfaction with the entire terrain of contemporary popular culture. Is it pleasurable? Absolutely. A pleasure of elitist condescension and rote dismissal, no doubt, but also hopefully a desire for something better (even if that is probably impossible!)

By: joe

joe — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 03:40:23 +0000

interesting… a large majority of the hype i heard before seeing avatar was geek articles detailing the tech it used, and i wound up in the “beautiful visuals but terrible plot/dialog” camp, which is sort of a blend between the two positions you explore. But like i said, i wasn’t getting much other hype before seeing the film for myself (and i went in not knowing much about the plot but expecting to enjoy the latest generation of 3D cinematic technology).

By: Jonathan Gray

Jonathan Gray — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 04:32:39 +0000

Thanks Chuck. And yes, it doesn’t really fit the “America wants more Passion of the Christ” model, does it? (though if Passion was in IMAX 3-D, all bets are off…)