Avatar

K: I'd like to start out by saying that I did like Avatar, I just wasn't overly thrilled with it like everyone else seems to be. The animation was spectacular. I especially loved the little floating puffy things that looked like jellyfish. I wish they would have put as much effort into the script as they did the animation. The plot was trite and completely predictable. It was a half-assed Dances With Wolves wannabe that lacked any subtlety whatsoever.

My main issue with the plot is that I know it didn't have to be that bad; someone was just too lazy to care about it. I would like to point to Up and Wall-E as examples of how a high tech movie ought to be. The animation in these two were spectacular, of course. But beyond that they had me captivated in a riveting story with characters I really cared about. In my mind I was trying to justify Avatar's plot by telling myself that they were aiming for a broad audience that encompassed kids (unlike Dances With Wolves that is clearly for a mature audience only). But that argument just doesn't hold. Up and Wall-E were aimed directly at children but they bewitched and enchanted people of every age.

So I know it can be done: there can be a successful marriage between CGI technology and decent scripts. It's just up to the producers to care enough about making a quality movie and not just a flashy one.