Blarghagh

According to Box Office Mojo, Avatar is now the highest grossing film of all time. Even though it's not the highest amount of tickets sold and the record falls apart when inflation is taken into account, it's still nice to see something knock Titanic off the top spot. It's been there disturbingly long.

Speargun! Severed but intact alien limbs across the map like breadcrumbs.

EDIT: Nevermind. The sooner people stop posting in this thread the better.

If we can just shrug off good 'n proper stuff with a handwave like this, I'mma go with "never trust anyone's opinion on the internet because they're just trying to annoy people and don't even believe it themselves". Seriously, you are like some trollish, one-track devil's advocate. I don't think you're even really a socialist - you're just repeating things you heard to see people get pissed.

I gotta see this movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx0GaB2EHUs

Watched the first episode of Firefly again due to being in that horribly annoying mood where you're bored as hell but don't actually want to do anything. I always end up watching something I've already seen a thousand times.

It's still playing, so you could still go if you want. I guess you could say we're talking about the one that has "Episode One" in the title. One of the pointless yet entertaining enough to fill in a couple hours prequels.

No, not really. Raiders of the Lost Ark is just as good as it always was, so I can always go back to that. Plus, maybe it's because I didn't grow up with Star Wars and have no nostalgic ties to it, but until Clone Wars came along I still thought Return of the Jedi was the worst of the bunch. EDIT: Although I am not saying Episode One is great. It's only okay. Passable entertainment once or twice.

Honestly, Episode One isn't even the worst Star Wars film, let alone worth 'puking at'. Are you implying that's what you do, then?

Plus, nobody but the biggest snobs hate them so much.

"Cowabunga dude!"

I think First Contact is pretty great. I can't believe Johnathan Frakes directed that, because all his other directing work is so much poop. Thunderbirds!?

Journey to the West was originally literature. However, I'm going to retract my suggestion due to it being a stupid mistake. Journey to the West is Chinese literature, not Japanese. Apologies.

To turn Avatar into some phenomenon? The only reason this got into the news is because Avatar is already a phenomenon.

Journey to the West.

Only two more weeks of internship, then an exam project to get my what-in-america-would-probably-be-equel-to-and-Associates Degree in Animation (not sure, the education system is different here but it would mean I have two associates degrees...?), and then on my way to get a bachelor's in 3D Animation and Visual Effects! Whoo.

What was so confusing about it? It worked pretty well for me once I got used to the part where I'm not actually walking on the floor like I'm used to in video games.

Which, although not very interesting, was effective enough in the context of the movie, I think.

He looked pretty remorseful when the hometree was falling. And despite that, he's the one that's trying to get the scientists to find a diplomatic solution in the first place.

Let's not forget that the greedy corporate shill Parker repeatedly shows remorse, doubt and seems unwilling to kill (even giving the good guys several chances to prevent it) despite his belief that the blue people are just 'monkeys' and seemingly only does it because it's his job and he feels it HAS to be done. Avatar is not nearly as black and white as you make it out to be. There are points of view for characters in this film that many people throughout history have had, and you seem to be ignoring them because they are in the role of 'villain' and you're clamping on to that so you can make your wrongful likeness to cartoons. I mean, I'm not saying that there is a lot of hidden depth in this film. It's not very deep. But saying it's a cartoon is just a gross exaggeration. This is not the hero adventurer against the evil lich and his skeleton army.

Yeah, it's remarkably close to that. All it's really missing is a giant personification of pollution voiced by Tim Curry.

Up also went a bit bland and rote in its plotting after the house arrived in South America, regardless of the perfection of that first sequence. My point being that I'd be willing to bet that what sold the movie to the millions that went to see it was the by-the-numbers adventure part and not the sweet, beautiful, sad and wonderful part. Incidentally, a similar thing happened with Wall-e which took a nosedive after the little guy left the planet. I think you're overstating that part about Up - the opening sequence was definitely the best part but the adventure part wasn't completely by the numbers, plus it was littered with beautiful, emotional bits as well. I agree with Wall-E, though. It all kindof falls apart the moment humans appear.

Plus, having your action adventure hero be a geriatric man with a hearing aid and a special cane is just plain cool.

Ratatouille is about rats, of all things. And Pixar films always focus on the story and characters first, visuals second. Well, except maybe Cars. Cars was pretty stupid, I think.

You didn't say it needed a story. You said it needed a compelling story. By which you meant it needed a story that compels to you. Because obviously millions of people going to repeat viewings of Avatar are not compelled by the story but by the special effects they've already seen. Here's another example using Star Wars: The naive farmboy saves the Princess from the Black Knight's fortress. Wow, my mind is blown by this deeply original story. Star Wars became a hit because of it's setting and it's special effects. And that's fine. It was fine then, and it's fine now. Saying it isn't is nothing but arrogance on your part.