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I agree that 2012 is a good barometer for the #'s Avatar could/should be able to pull in. Particularly since it will get a ton of bonus bucks from the IMAX. I don't see Avatar making less than $500 mill. worldwide, but I don't see it making much more than 600 either. In other words it looks like it will open well, do solid #'s worldwide, and make a tidy profit. But not be a huge profitmaker or a surprise monster hit. Of course, we will see. My lack of enthusiasm is primarily from the reaction I've seen to the trailers and tv spots, which has been subdued. In fact I got a bit of a Final Fantasy vibe. I think the geek crowd and the IMAX/family crowd is really going to go for it. But the date crowd, older folks, urban, not so sure it will play all that big to them.

2012 making 600 million doesn't mean Avatar should make the same. The average moviegoer sees amazing VFX of cities being destroyed, it looks good, it's something they can somewhat relate to, cool fun, they go see it. On the other hand, seeing blue people with tails jumping on pterodactyls while battling giant robots? They can't relate to that in any way, they look confused, next trailer please. "Jim Cameron? Who's that? Oh my older brother mentioned he made some cool movie in the early 90s." You can bet the older brother will see this movie. His younger brother will not. If older brother doesn't see it twice, Fox is screwed. IMO.

Aris that's why I said the IMAX money will help it get there. Yeah, I agree it looks a bit less commercial than 2012, lets say 10-15% less people see it worldwide, but because of the IMAX surcharge, it will still bring in roughly the same box office.

Also presumably Avatar would have better legs than 2012, right?

Avatar's legs are going to depend on word of mouth. No more, no less. To some degree, 2012 deflected both critics and viewers because it gave audiences 2 hours of shit blowing up, and they got what they paid for.

Unless it's *great* and has something for the ladies, it's going to be tough to get to $600 million. I Am Legend had Will Smith. 2012 had John Cusack. Avatar has.....Sam Worthington? Giovanni Ribisi? Um, ok. That's going to be a very interesting conversation for guys trying to convince their gfs to see that weird blue alien dinosaur movie.

oh please, only men dig sci-fi/action/adventure?

the great myth: that women all think alike and have to be dragged kicking and screaming into anything not a romcom/drama.

the reality is, female viewers happily help make all types of movies successful. anyone would think from reading this and other movie blogs that if you look into cinemas the world over, one would see a crowd of only male patrons in certain types of films, which of course is utter bollocks (men, however, are typically not as diverse in their viewing habits as women)

and big jim is no dummy, 'avatar' at its core is a love story, like all cameron flicks to various degrees (except perhaps the send-up 'true lies'). for 'avatar' to become a phenomenon it will have to strike a chord and get repeat viewers, but this notion that 'group-think women' aren't going to want to see 'avatar' is ludacris

Geek sci-fi tends to have the worst legs out of any genre. Not saying that will be the only audience for Avatar, or the result. But the genre it's in typically opens big and drops bigger.

Avatar is The Abyss Redux. Big, expansive and interesting but lost in its hypotheticals and technology. I think we're going to be able to draw even more transparent parallels between the two later this month. I tried not to follow the plot too closely, but when I see "Human enters alien world and sides with benevolent but misunderstood aliens to defeat aggressive human military"....

Leah, Avatar may be a love story at its core but the marketing team is doing a great job of hiding that fact in most of their advertising.

But if AVATAR was about "Humans enter Alien world and defeat evil aliens with aggressive human military..." then it would be ALIENS...which Cameron already made when it cool to revel in xenophobic jingoism. Ah, Reagan-Era Glory Days....

dp

the 'poor reporting' (primarily by cieply at nyt) suggested avatar may approach a cost of $500 when p&a, r&d are added.

you say "If, realistically, we are looking at Avatar costing near $300 million to produce and the acknowledged $150m worldwide to market..."

aren't you backsliding here. did you not recently assert avatar cost much less than $300 million to produce?

also, is not $300 million + $150 million p&a 'approaching' $500 million? that is, isn't $450 million approaching $500 million as cieply said it 'may' in his write up?

in the second paragraph of this post you call the notion that avatar cost $500 million 'silliness'. yet, you have acknowledged that its cost, in your opinion, has approached exactly that -- $500 million.

what gives? you trashed cieply at length, now you're basically agreeing with him.

I am one of the folks Avatar will have to win over to get to blockbuster status and have not been moved by any of the marketing. "We're not in Kansas any more" is the lamest, hackneyed line I've almost ever heard. I'm not feelin' the blue lizard people.

T2 was on cable the other night...me, my husband and son all got completely enthralled. So little (relative to Avatar) VFX...just a great story and ass-kicking antagonist.

I'll be very eager to read/watch your review, Dave. May sway me one way or the other...

martin s, you obviously have not seen 'avatar'

"blue lizard people"

que? the navi are not even remotely lizard-like. snark for snark's sake

"T2 was on cable the other night...So little (relative to Avatar) VFX...just a great story and ass-kicking antagonist"

well, considering the majority of 'avatar' is ANIMATED using evil CGI that comparison is like apples and oranges, really

From a purely historical POV, I was looking at the box office history of these December tentpoles and of the top 30 Dec openers, only 7 didn't achieve 4 times their opening weekend in eventual box office grosses. I AM LEGEND, the current record holder did more than 3 times its O.W., but the 2nd - 9th biggest openers all did it, even the soft opening KING KONG did only 23% of its eventual gross in the 1st weekend, and got to $218M. I somehow don't see AVATAR coming in under that. And if history is to repeat itself then with about $250M stateside and a stronger performance overseas, $600M is a reasonable target.

We shouldn't forget those lucrative box office days between Christmas anC. KING KONG actually increased its box office in the 3rd weekend and I AM LEGEND dropped by only 18% on the weekend after Christmas. This season was made for legs. Actually the way I see AVATAR bombing is if it is shockingly bad. If its just okay, it still makes some coin. If Cameron brings his A-Game, well we`re looking at $800M - $1B movie.

Should read `Christmas and New Years.`

Zyg... not sure where you took math, but $450m is not $500m, just as $200 million isn't $300 million, etc.

Cieply wrote a piece that cited nothing but rumors about a $500 price tag. And what he did, using the NYT to make it legit, was to make $500m the number while offering math that didn't get it to $500m.

One of the things the Wrap piece gets right is that we have had a number of $300m price tag movies in the last few years. Maybe Avatar is one of them. Maybe it is not. We don't actually know. (Leah says she does.) But what it clearly is NOT is $500 million.

Moreover, when the NYT changes the way they count things because they want it to feed a story idea, they behave like hacks, not like quality journalists. This is true with this sudden interest in adding in the marketing budget, which you don't see on movies they want to spin positively. And it is true in international box office, which pops up when it fits their spin and disappears when it does not... often in the very same story.

Throwing out a $500m figure in the NYT is shouting fire in a crowded theater. And when you know that it is likely at least 10% off... and probably 20% off, it is truly shitty reporting.

I am saying what I have always said. I don't know. If Fox admits to $236m, than the number is probably $300 and change minus the tax credits. That's just showbiz guessing based on how spin is done. But again... they could be dead on the number. It could be $325m and and they are actually getting $88m back in tax credits.

What I tried to do here is to say, we really don't know, believing a studio on face value is a lot like listening to gossip... and here are some ways the financials could look by the end. Nowhere do I "backslide" or suggest that I know the precise number or agree that it is $500m or that $450 all in would be approaching $500m.

10% is more than the margin most studios earn in a good year. If you think that throwing around 10% of a mega-budget is fair and "so what," then you probably have never been responsible or known people who are responsible for these numbers. I have been fighting with one friendly producer about the budget on one of his massively expensive films for years now... and I still think he's a little full of shit and he still looks like he wants to hit me with a plate when I don't give in to the number without questioning him. 10% is A LOT.

"when it cool to revel in xenophobic jingoism."

Christian, sometimes you're as bad as Nicol. Aliens is a substantially more complicated movie than you're giving it credit for. After all, it's a movie in which an untrained civilian woman saves the day and rescues a band of bulked-up, semi-competent space Marines. Sounds kind of subversive to me.

i did not say 450 is 500. i'm well aware of the math. i said $450m 'approaches' $500m.

the studio reps are adamantly claiming $240 million. i don't think it's possible to make a cgi heavy movie (with a runtime of a 150 minutes) for $240 million. i agree with you -- if the suits say $240, that probably means $300. that also probably doesn't count any of the tech r&d costs related to this picture. cameron has been having cameras redesigned (sony), software written, and other tech innovations prepped for years in order to make filming avatar possible. this, certainly, has cost a pretty penny. shooting a movie that takes place on another planet with massive battle sequences involving dozens of combatants in non-existent war machines, and flying dragons, with a runtime of 2 1/2 hours costs a pretty penny as well. even without cgi it wouldn't be easy to shoot a 2-hour plus movie with massive battle sequences for $240m. so, no, i don't believe avatar could be made for $240m. perhaps, if its runtime were around 90 minutes and there were no special tech costs going back years an argument could be made...perhaps.

however, i think it's fair to say $450 approaches $500. $450m is 9\10ths $500m. that seems to qualify as 'approaching'. yes, 10% (of $500m) is a lot of money. i did not say it wasn't. however, i don't think that was cieply's point when he said the budget 'may approach' $500m. nor was it mine.

you're saying 450 does not approach 500. you're also suggesting a studio can make avatar for $240m. i don't agree. you're clinging to skimpy semantics, and cheap shots (where i took math they knew the difference between 450 and 500, or 200 and 300, etc).

i think you rather enjoyed trashing cieply and you did so off the cuff with a brusque tone that was as close to disrespectful as you can get but, now, you have as much as agreed with his assessment of the cost of avatar, however are not willing to admit it.

of course, then again, $450m is not the same as $500m, and perhaps cieply was wrong by some $50 million (or 10%) when he said the cost 'may approach' that amount.

HA! no, DP, i've never claimed to know final numbers (it's only just wrapped), what i've said previously is that i know the original production budget, that the US production dollar stretches further here combined with govt tax credits = lower prod. costs (which nobody was taking into consideration in the fashionably snarky rumour-mongering and it would appear is STILL being overlooked in the final analysis), that the production was tight and budget over-runs were far more modest than the wild speculation implied by people who really have no idea what they're on about, and that R & D for the likes of the pace-fusion camera and revolutionary facial capture is NOT part of the production budget

(i'm pretty sure that's all i've said, if i said something else i've forgotten, you can remind me if you like)

the 237 could well be accurate for just raw production costs or it could be low-balling, but whatever the case i hope it serves to temper the 'fish that got away' budget speculation where every time there was a new article on 'avatar' the blow-out figure had grown in size up to 400mil. bunch of bloody gossip-mongers

No, Jeff, I'm not at all as bad as Nicol. And I'm certain you weren't there in 1986, so I can tell you the atmosphere that ALIENS was released in and how movies of the RED DAWN RAMBO TOP GUN era appealed to the Reaganite xenophobia of the period. I love ALIENS but the militaristic gung-ho wasn't my imagination and I'm hardly the only one to point it out. It's one of the things STARSHIP TROOPERS was satirizing. My point is that Cameron already made the movie Martin S. wants to see...

Okay, I wasn't paying attention to Martin S.'s comment. But I also don't think that the political atmosphere of 23 years ago needs to matter when I watch the same movie in 2009.

It may not matter to you but it still informs the movie. Cultural context is pretty important to the study of film, especially when gauging their politics. Cameron also wrote RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II at the same time as ALIENS.

I always thought Cameron was pretty broadly comic with the space marines. "Every meal a banquet, every formation a parade." "Game over man, game over." And the feeble minded officer who can't manage the situation. Basically the marines crap the bed then Ripley takes charge and brings in the reality principle of whoopin' ass.

Aliens BOW

Cameron's movies are neither jingoist or pacifist. All of them feature an "Everyman" or "Everywoman" who has to team up with a bunch of no-nonsense sensible blue-collar people to win. Usually the bureaucrats or businessmen are the ones who are the bad guys. So he's a classist, if anything.

AVATAR seems like it'll follow in the tried and true fashion of all the other films. Michelle Rodriguez's character could basically be straight out of ALIENS, Sam Worthington -- like Michael Biehn -- is the low-class (but lovable) grunt, etc.

These are characters that, for all their cheesy lines and broad characterizations, should be very appealing to general audiences... unless Cameron has completely lost his touch.

Box office predictions are just ridiculously tough to make on this film, but let's look at recent history:

For months, I was hearing anecdotal evidence that Star Trek was getting good attention, but it would not break through because of the name and look what happened?

I thought the same with Transformers - no way a "niche" film like that would be able to be a major blockbuster, but look what happened.

Look, if women will flock to films drawn to the "sex appeal" of Shia LaBeauf or Taylor Lautner as a werewolf, then I just would not rule out Sam Worthington as a blue alien. The guy is on MTV, making the talk show rounds, etc. We'll see if it works.

One more thing about the numbers - when you think about it, it's quite amazing that according to the studio, Avatar is actually cheaper than Titanic, when adjusted for inflation. But it's not completley inconceivable - Titanic was a long production dealing with elements out of its control and it sounds like this production was much more focused - maybe Cameron even learned some lessons?

One thing I'm curious about - back on an older Super Movie Friends, there was talk about how District 9 should have cost much more but that Blomkamp got "discounts" from Peter Jackson from WETA for the effects. Is this really likely?

And in that regard, does Cameron have a stake in WETA - it sounds like he has been running that place for the past few years, especially leading them towards developing new technologies. I honestly don't know, but is it possible he got a better deal than most on the effects, as well, and that might have kept costs down?

geoff, re: D-9, the whole idea that D-9 was produced lean and mean because neill got his CGI on the cheap from weta digital is a non-starter because a canadian company called 'image engine design' did the vast majority of the vis effects shots, weta digital only rendered the mothership & shuttle, and blomkamp's company 'the embassy' did a wee bit as well but i can't remember what part, i'm thinking wikus' power-suit thingee but that could be wrong.

as for cameron, he has no stake in weta digital and most certainly has not been 'running the place' for the past few years; he chose to make 'avatar' mainly here in wellywood because of our world-class no-bullshit low-frills highly-skilled crews, facilities, infrastructure and talent, and because the US production dollar is worth more here, in addition to qualifying for our government's 'large budget screen grant' and post-production grants of 15% of production costs, which makes a big-budget flick like 'avatar' that much more affordable to produce here. this is why production costs for 'avatar' were kept mainly in check, a fact apparently no-one in lalaland is willing to accept or admit or something, i don't get it but whatever, there you go

Leah - I wrote this -

I tried not to follow the plot too closely

You followed up with-

martin s, you obviously have not seen 'avatar'

Very astute. I'm going by the impression of the trailers and nothing I've seen says the overall plot is any different than Abyss. My argument is Alien/Aliens and Terminator/T2. The man has a pattern of switching characters and devices but not themes and structure, especially if he feels the first attempt didn't live up to his vision. So he can invert who invades who, but that's only a device if it results in the protagonist sympathizing with the benevolent aliens against his fellow humans, the duplicitous antagonizers.

Christian - My point is that Cameron already made the movie Martin S. wants to see...

Where the fuck do you even get off making that comment? Don't speak for me. Don't assume shit. You have no idea what kind of movie I "wanted". You're a one-dimensional thinker that distills everything down to Left or Right and your understanding of Aliens proves it.

"Cultural Context"...ohmygod. This is the same theorist bullshit that destroyed the English Lit world. Aliens/Rambo is a Reeses Peanut Buttercup. You got your Rambo in my Alien sequel, you got your Alien in my First Blood sequel. Rambo uses a flame thrower, Ripley uses a flame thrower. Aliens "hide" by melding into the wall, Rambo "hides" by melding into a mud wall. Rambo uses a massive machine gun, Colonial marines carry a similar gun, etc... The common ground is Ripley and Rambo were both characters betrayed their commanders, except with Rambo it was decades earlier while for Ripley we were in the moment. Cameron evened it out by jumping Ripley 60+ years later, making her motivation the same as Rambo; go back, finish the job, get revenge. The militarism was from Rambo, which has its origins in First Blood, a book written in 1972! I'm sure if Cameron stayed with his sci-fi Spartacus while working on Rambo, we would have found similar blending lines.

Well we could be discussing Plan 9 From Outer Space: The Next Generation and Leah would be singing its praises from the mountaintops if they shot some stuff down in her area. So yes, I do take those comments with a huge grain of salt. As far as Cameron's ouvre and how this fits in, I would agree that the Abyss and also T2 comparisons feel apt. The supposed tech breakthru, which was very apparent in T2, and the kind of personal but expensive and not overtly commercial feel of the Abyss. These discussions are always kind of depressing because they're not about the film, as much as about the more mundane production costs/technological elements. But since the trailers haven't really given me a whole lot to get thrilled about yet, production cost and CG seem to the be primary areas of discussion. Once it comes out, hopefully we'll be talking about how it has a great story with interesting characters, along with beautiful imagery. But for right now, none of that is obviously apparent except for some cool shots in the trailer.

You're a one-dimensional thinker that distills everything down to Left or Right and your understanding of Aliens proves it."

Yet your simplistic point was that Cameron's film was going to be "Human enters alien world and sides with benevolent but misunderstood aliens to defeat aggressive human military"....And that wasn't filtered through your right-wing spin machine?

And yeah, it's crazy to connect the subtext of ALIENS to RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II -- which are almost the same story -- to fostering any 80's era jingoism. Way out of league. Unimaginable.

"Not surprisingly, critics ignore ALIENS' militaristic and imperialist premises while discussing or at least mentioning such premises in reviews of other science fiction and adventure films, whether Rocky IV, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (Spielberg:1981) or STAR WARS (Lucas: 1977). Critics may debate ALIENS' attitudes towards women and Woman, but the right of Ripley, the U.S. Marines and the "terraformers" to occupy and colonize another world goes largely unquestioned (Kopkind; Creed; Ansen; OToole; Schickel, July 28, 1986)."

http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC35folder/ColdwarSequalsRemakes.html

And "cultural context" did not destroy anything. Postmodern deconstruction did that, which is not the same thing. Films don't exist in a cultural vacum and one of the best, most obvious ways to study them is to see how they reflected their era. Otherwise Joe Leydon is out of a job!

Zyg... I saw that you seemed more interested in me beating on Cieply than the actual math. But Cieply deserves the beating. He is not an independent blogger. He is the New York Times. And that $500m report was unsubstantiated, not-specific, and grossly irresponsible.

If I set a number like that, the studio would freak and I would have long, loud conversations about it. But when the NYT does it, it becomes "a fact," even if it is untrue. That is another level of responsibility. Period.

They ask to be The Paper of Record... then they better f-ing act like The Paper of Record and not a bunch of attention-seeking yahoos.

And of course you can do a heavy CG movie for $240 million. Spider-Man 3, for instance, wasn't much more than that below the line. The above-the-line money that movie carried is what put it in the mid 300s.

But that brings to mind another thing about Cieply's terrible piece. There was a repeating subtext that he was counting the money the studio didn't spend that came from participant companies... valuing the partner deals. That would be a really interesting story on its own. But those dollars have never been counted against a movie they weren't trying to position as The Most Expensive Ever.

Is Fox spending $150m or is Panasonic in for 20 million of that 150 with their cross-promotional spots of their hi-def TVs? Could be either, really. There could be $250m in marketing dollars for the film, with $100 million coming from partners. Could be that Fox is in for $100m and will get another $100m from partners... or $50m or whatever.

I got into this big time with Dawn Taubin at WB when I screamed about Superman Returns being a $300 million movie. And it was a $300 million movie. But they didn't want to publicly count development and other mis-starts against Singer's film. They did want to count it against the film's gross for partners, however.

Regardless, they understood how bad that $300 million tag was, in terms of perception with the media, the public, and most importantly, the stockholders in TW.

And Fox is in the same position. Expensive movie. Yes. So they are trying to lower the bar of expectations now. Completely understandable. And if there is a real piece of reporting, other than rumors attached to no names, that says $350m is the cost of production, by the standards that NYT normally holds production to, so be it. And if the NYT normally attaches the cost of distribution to their stories about movie costs, so be it.

What makes me INSANE is that Fox is doing their job. They are doing exactly what you'd expect. And oh, the irony that they are trying to use Sharon "I've made up another story, so you better cooperate or I will find some way of getting it in the paper" Waxman's site to correct the NYT.

But NYT is twisting like an colicky newborn to smear the movie with 500 MILLION DOLLARS, which unless there is a real source - and none was quoted and the math was wrong - is just tabloid journalism.

"Well we could be discussing Plan 9 From Outer Space: The Next Generation and Leah would be singing its praises from the mountaintops if they shot some stuff down in her area. So yes, I do take those comments with a huge grain of salt."

aw, martin, does that make your little know-nothing weenie pea brain feel better to take my comments with a HUGE grain of salt? god you're a twat

and what praises did i sing exactly? are you referring to my 'lovely bones' comments? let me spell it out for you: i worked on that movie, dipshit, while 'avatar' was being made next door. 'avatar' was shot, mo-capped (tho some mo-cap was done in CA) and animated here, with govt funding. it's not up for debate by a bunch of dingleberries who don't know their ass from their elbow but desperately like to think they do, it's a FACT. DEAL WITH IT. it's hilarious how you wannabees shoot your mouths off and call people liars when you know NOTHING

dp

my observation is in regard to your comment, not nyt or cieply's reporting style. it was your reversal that struck me. you trashed cieply for throwing out a $500m figure. then you said avatar 'realistically' cost $300m + $150m. essentially agreeing with cieply.

you're sticking with the '450 isn't 500' line? then, you've shredded cieply for being 10% wrong and you're not willing to admit it. whether you feel he (or nyt) behaved appropriately as the paper of record is not the issue. this is classic obfuscation. you don't like nyt's reporting, fine. be that as it may. this, however, is about your comments, not cieply's. your back pedaling, not cieply's math. your refusal to admit you've assessed avatar's budget to be essentially the same as cieply's guess.

when you ripped cieply's write up you went into detail how his math was wrong, then, later (in this post), you endorsed essentially the same figure. this is central. in your piece 'cieply math'
(http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/archives/2009/11/cieply_math.html)
your first important point is: "Okay, Mr, Cieply. How do you get to $500 million?" clearly, you are concerned about numbers, dollar amounts, math. yet, your figures (of this post) add up to almost $500m. your estimate of $450m qualifies as 'approaching' $500m.

you go on to opine nyt's coverage is "right out of Nikki Finke". you have a right to your opinion. i'll give you this -- cieply's piece is a bit jangly. that however is beside the point. your $450 is almost the same as cieply's $500. is it not? 450 approaches being 500. does it not?

while you have taken offense at nyt/cieply's approach, i take exception to yours.

i ask you directly. did you not conclude avatar's budget was $450m, and, is this not essentially the same as cieply's guess -- the same guess you ridiculed at length? if this is so, don't you owe cieply a concession on at least that point regardless how you may feel about his reporting?

------------------------------------

ps -- i find it difficult to believe a cgi saturated film like avatar with a runtime of 150 minutes could be made for the same money spider man 3 was made for, considering spider man 3 has a runtime of 139 minutes and does not have effects or mo-cap to the same degree or extent as avatar, and takes place on earth not another planet.

Hard to believe that in 1977, A BRIDGE TOO FAR cost 22 million dollars and STAR WARS 9.5 million.

Christian - Yet your simplistic point was that Cameron's film was going to be "Human enters alien world and sides with benevolent but misunderstood aliens to defeat aggressive human military"....And that wasn't filtered through your right-wing spin machine?

What I wrote is the exact plot summary of The Abyss but in your one-trick mind, that's right-wing spin.

Films don't exist in a cultural vacum and one of the best, most obvious ways to study them is to see how they reflected their era.

Retroactively applying motivations to films doesn't make it so. Cameron was not thinking about how he could champion "80's jingoism" when writing Aliens and Rambo. How do I know - by his own words from the time. So while a movie may not exist in a cultural vacuum, that doesn't automatically mean it was born out of a cultural zeitgeist. In 1981 you had Raiders, Road Warrior and Escape From New York. Their success on macro and micro budgets was the genesis for Big Action from Terminator through Batman89.

Simply because Cameron didn't claim to be championing any imperialist pov -- absurd given we're talking RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD 2, which was widely pilloried for exactly that xenophobic jingoism -- doesn't mean it's not there (and it's all over the vile TRUE LIES). I was there in the 80's and the zeitgeist was indeed Reagan-era militarism aka TOPGUNRAMBOREDDAWN. It was manifest then, not retroactively 20 years later.

Simply because Cameron didn't claim to be championing any imperialist pov -- absurd given we're talking RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD 2, which was widely pilloried for exactly that xenophobic jingoism -- doesn't mean it's not there (and it's all over the vile TRUE LIES). I was there in the 80's and the zeitgeist was indeed Reagan-era militarism aka TOPGUNRAMBOREDDAWN. It was manifest then, not retroactively 20 years later.

It's commonly known that Stallone did a personal re-write of Cameron's script for RAMBO II before it filmed. As Cameron said, "The action is mine, the politics is all him." Or something to that effect.

Cameron's '80s action films actually get away from the stereotype of what films were like then -- big beefy buys blowing away hordes of generic baddies; whereas Cameron's films involve a more "everyman" hero or heroine who often has to face up to a large greater/more dangerous enemy.

I don't see how anyone can say that Aliens is a pro-military movie. Basically, they only made it through when a non-military person thinking individually took over. The army dudes were jacked up, overconfident, and got their asses kicked. Just because Cameron likes hardware doesn't mean he's all about the military.

Same story with The Abyss...who were the bad guys there? Military.

Terminator...who put in place the programs that destroyed everything? Government and militaty.

Fuck, just because Cameron likes planes and big sci-fi trucks and huge guns doesn't make him a military booster. To see that in his movies is missing what he's doing, entirely.

And you cannot, CANNOT use a script-for-hire job like Rambo to bolster any argument. Talk to any writer for hire and ask him who was calling the shots on the final script. There is no way that Stallone wasn't getting what he wanted.

The soldiers in ALIENS all go out in a blaze of heroism. Even the green captain gets his due. I can use TRUE LIES to bolster my argument. A truly jingoistic movie. No debate. I don't think at all he's a right-wing xenophobe, but the deification of "might makes right" exists behind Cameron's work.

Christian, have you actually watched Aliens? Most of the soliders in aliens go out screaming and panicing as they're picked off one by one. Only three are killed after the initial attack, after we've gotten to know them better. Here's how they go out:

Hudson - Panicky idiot screaming and blasting away at everything while screaming, then eaten.

The other two blow themselves up rather than being taken. Okay, I guess you could say that was heroic to a certain extent, but I'd say may as well blow yourself up and take a few with you rather than get taken and have a slimy spider alien facefuck you.

So you have maybe two heroic deaths out of what, 16 or so?

Also, I think when it comes to True Lies, things get a little trickier because it's the one movie out of Cameron's that is a comedy. Notice that all of his "serious" movies keep the military as either outright bad or at least incompetent.

Oh, I should also mention this, based on something you said..."Hard to believe that in 1977, A BRIDGE TOO FAR cost 22 million dollars and STAR WARS 9.5 million."

It's true, but back then gas cost like 60 cents. Inflation, my man! Of course there are other reasons like star salaries and such, but of course those movies were cheaper.

"What I wrote is the exact plot summary of The Abyss "

Are you serious? You don't see any bias AT ALL in what you wrote.... come on. You can't be THAT unaware.

"Oh, I should also mention this, based on something you said..."Hard to believe that in 1977, A BRIDGE TOO FAR cost 22 million dollars and STAR WARS 9.5 million."

It's true, but back then gas cost like 60 cents. Inflation, my man! Of course there are other reasons like star salaries and such, but of course those movies were cheaper."

--

I think the point was more that a traditionally filmed production can be far more expensive than a VFX-heavy film. Tons of VFX does not necessarily translate to "huge budget". TITANIC's budget was huge for the time not because it had a lot of special effects (although it did); it was because it was a huge physical production, complete with large-scale ship repeatedly sinking on cue, hundreds of extras, etc.

At this point I have to wonder both if Martin S has seen The Abyss and if Christian has seen any Cameron movie.

Big Perm, have you seen ALIENS? Hudson is a hero when he goes down, "Oh you want some? You want some too?" The opening night audience applauded him repeatedly. Nobody thinks Hudson is an idiot. And yes, Vasquez and Gorman go out as heroes. As do Hicks and even Bishop the Android saves the day. Cameron is not putting the military down -- the bad guys are the Company.

Just because you watch a film in one light doesn't mean it doesn't exist in another Jeff. A film can be read in many ways as you might be aware. Your way isn't the final arbiter.

See, Christian, this is where your unwavering sense of binary oppositions is getting in the way. Yes, the Company are the bad guys in the movie, as are the aliens themselves. But the good guys in the movie aren't the military, either - the primary good guys are those on the fringes - Ripley herself, Newt, Bishop. It's a mistake to think of the other military folks as some kind of monolithic entity - Gorman turns out to be a failure, but Hicks and Vasquez turn out to be competent (and Hudson is ultimately comic relief, meaning that he occupies a different role altogether).

If there's a constant message in Cameron's movies, it's not that might makes right (in which case the heroes would be Arnold in the first Terminator or Billy Zane) but that scrappy and smart makes right.

For a guy who calls himself Story...

Human - Ed Harris The Protagonist.

enters Alien World - The Deep Ocean. i.e - The Abyss.

sides with benevolent but misunderstood aliens - For 2+ hours, the story places the aliens in position of threat, until Bud learns otherwise and the aliens stop nuclear war.

to defeat aggressive human military - Biehn as Coffey? WW3?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Abyss

That's the plot. I'd provide a definition of the word, but I don't want JeffMC to think I'm goading him on.

Christian - True Lies - 1994. You were the one who started harping on "80's jingoism" because, as you keep saying - YOU WERE THERE...MAN!!!

Here's a summary - you assumed my problem with Avatar was political even after I broke down to Leah that my beef is Cameron's penchant to dress up old ideas in shiny new baubles. Doesn't matter to you, as you see my name and pre-judge it to be "ring-wing spin". So you pull a line that fits your reality and run with it until it becomes a political fight. I referenced The Abyss. Nothing more.

I'm sorry you're addicted to the fight and can no longer see things for what they just are. I'm sorry you've had to admit to reading more right-wing sites than I do and calling right-wing talk radio to fight. I'm sorry that's your life. Because that's not living.

Please, Jeff. En-f'ing-lighten me.

No thanks.

Right-wing sites take up a few minutes of the day.

But debating cultural politics on The Hot Blog...Ah, Sweet Bird of Paradise...

Yeah Christian, I have seen Aliens more times than is probably healthy. Hudson may have gone out big, but he didn't go heroic...come on, he went fucking crazy. Of course the audience applauded his death, it was awesome...but not heroic. I would applaud if LexG got eaten by aliens, and I wouldn't call him a hero.

Who doesn't think Hudson is a whiny idiot? That's why we love him!

Don't be the Martin S of the left, man. Just don't be that guy.

Big Perm, you're whistling your own tune. And since I've seen ALIENS as many times as you, twice in the opening weekend and repeated theatrical screenings, your take on Hudson is just that -- yours. Comparing his character to Lex proves that. Watch the film with an audience again and when Hudson says to Burke, "You're toast," wait for the applause. They're not applauding because they can't wait to see him die, silly.

But yes, Hudson starts as a fool and goes out with a heroic bang.

From McSweeney's, Ann Coulter and Dinesh D'souza's unused audio commentary for ALIENS:

COULTER: This may be my favorite scene: Hudson slaughtering aliens. He's seeing that interspecies genocide, under the proper circumstances, can be invigorating. Hudson has changed.

D'SOUZA: It's like that old saying: A conservative is a liberal who's been attacked by aliens.

COULTER: This is sad when Hudson dies. Pulled down into the depths.

D'SOUZA: Bravely fighting, though.

COULTER: Would you rather be shot or would you rather be impregnated by an alien?

D'SOUZA: Well …

COULTER: Again we see Burke running away. And, tragically, he runs into one of the aliens and is killed. Frankly, I begin to lose interest here. It's not the same film without him.

D'SOUZA: Private Vasquez dies, too, yes?

COULTER: She and Gorman die together. Fitting, in that Gorman is the Clinton-esque figure who dies with a woman in his arms.

D'SOUZA: He does redeem himself at the end.

COULTER: Gorman?

D'SOUZA: Yes.

COULTER: By killing. With his little pistol. He loses his own life trying to rescue a Marine who was already going to die. It just goes to show you. Even when liberals like Gorman finally do something good, they actually ruin everything.

D'SOUZA: The path to hell is paved by liberal best intentions.

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2003/05/28aliens.html

If the bar for 'heroic death' is 'not being slaughtered like a bawling loser', then okay, fine, Hudson passes that bar. Nice high expectations there that he overcame. In fact, I don't know why the movie was called "Aliens" when it should have rightly paid tribute to him and just have been called "Hudson", but maybe there would have been some confusion with "Moscow on the".

If you peruse the interwebs, you'll find the prevailing wisdom is that Hudson goes out like a hero. Funny and violent, yes, but with guns ablazin'. Why would the movie be called HUDSON? He's one character among many, and he's redeemed by the end. And you forget it's Hudson who helps save Newt from the face-huggers. If you ask Cameron (or Paxton) if Hudson is supposed to be presented as a loser who gets what he deserves, I'll bet you a lap-dance they'd say, "Have you seen the movie?"

i'm pretty sure NOBODY has seen 'aliens' more times than me

- this little girl has survived longer than that with no weapons and no training...

- why don't you put her in charge!

hudson isn't a fool or a hero, he's comic relief as quite simply one of the most annoying yet lovable hilariously sarcastic somewhat cowardly one-liner-spouting whingers in the history of cinema, who dies needlessly in a burst of adrenaline-induced false bravado

(christian, hudson doesn't help save newt, that's hicks...)

the erudite jc on amongst other things the human history of taking what we want and justifying it, for anyone interested:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xbec8u_cameron-decrypte-son-film-avatar-ci_shortfilms

Christian, I've forgotten what the point of all of this was.

Christian, I didn't say Hudson got what he deserved. But he died in a way that will get a great audience response. So did The Joker in the first Batman and he wasn't a hero. So did Scarface and people love the shit out of him on the internet. Is he a hero? He went crazy and shot his gun a lot too in the end before dying in a blaze of glory, but unlike Hudson rappers write songs about him.

Leah my muse, Hudson shouts out for Newt to look out and blasts one of the critters. He's not being a fool or coward, and that scene sets up his redemption. When he goes down and out, it's not with false bravado. Is there any better way to get eaten by Aliens than Hudson? And Cameron is not filming his death to make the audience celebrate it -- he reserves that for the villains: Burke and the Aliens. Gorman is presented as untested until he goes back for Vasquez and finds his mettle and Cameron gives him him his due. It's all in the performances and filmmaking.

Jeff: We were taling about...something.

sorry, christian, the lab 'nap' scene hudson does indeed blow that face-hugger away, MY BAD, that's not the scene that came to mind

(but i stand by hudson going down needlessly with 'false bravado'; hicks is screaming at him to leave with them and hudson just goes mental; there are way too many aliens coming into the room thru the floor and ceiling for him to make a dent in the onslaught and yet he persists in the grip of his maniacal killing spree and dies in the process. in doing so, he doesn't even buy the escaping group any time, in fact endangering them further because they put their retreat on hold to come back to try to help hudson by grabbing his arms to keep him from being pulled down thru the floor. so where hudson feasibly could have escaped with the group into the vents, killing aliens from the tail, instead he goes off the deep end, endangers the group and dies. which is somehow fitting given his less than rock-steady emotional state thru the story)

EVEN if you accept that idea that Hudson and these other guys go down heroically, that doesn't really support the thesis that Cameron is giving the military a blowjob in Aliens.

Great blogging about a great movie from over 20 years ago - Aliens was one of the best films of the '80's and probably the biggest reason I am psyched for Avatar. I think there's really stuff in it for lefties AND righties to love and hate.

I'm a little hazy, because I was only about 11 at the time, but I remember there was a mini-backlash in the late '80's from pundits and/or critics about how "ridiculous" it was to have Ripley as the gun-toting hero to such an extreme. Wow, I wish I could remember who it was, but it could have some one along the lines of Michael Medved who bashed the movie for Hollywood wish fullfillment about how a woman would perform in the military. Really hard to just lump it in as right-wing propaganda for that reason, alone.

On the other hand, I think one thing that right-wingers (some I know) love about the movie, that no one has mentioned in this blog yet, is the time and care given to those futuristic weapons - it's obvious that Cameron has a weapon's fetish. I mean, who didn't want to own one of those pulse rifle/grenade launchers as a kid? And that power loader - great stuff that was actually filmed with more care and respect than the hundreds of millions Bay put into portraying Transformers.

People with gun fetishes just ate that stuff up.

i think the thing cameron nails and what makes 'aliens' so special is that ripley is NOT a badass, she's NOT a soldier, she's a relatively ordinary woman - very competent, level-headed and intelligent to be sure, and in this case suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome to boot - who doesn't give two shits about being a hero or any of that guff; the reason ripley ultimately kicks ass (apart from just doing what it takes to survive, as usual) is because she's a MOTHER protecting her CHILD and hell hath no fury like a mama bear when her cub is threatened.

the restored deleted scenes in the director's cut serve to explain this imperative in more depth -- ripley's grief in discovering her daughter died an old woman while ripley drifted in space, which very much informs ripley's rather sad, detached, almost orphan-like disposition going forward and her immediate connection/transference to newt, who's roughly the same age as ripley's daughter would have been had she returned to earth as planned. but amazingly this theme of loss and parental love is so powerful and pervasive that even in the theatrical cut without those deleted scenes about ripley's daughter, the palpable bond between chance 'mother and child' in ripley and newt is still as believable and compelling; we don't need to see those informing scenes to understand ripley's relationship with newt and feel her urge to care for/fierce instinct to protect that child, which says a good deal about fine acting and effective film-making.

anyhoo, this may well apply to dads also, but many mothers out there will know what i mean when i say it's pretty much our instinct to do ANYTHING to protect/save our kids from danger without giving it a second thought; we'd move heaven and earth, die for our child in an instant if it meant making them safe, even tho we aren't always able to do so.

so when ripley straps on that gnarly makeshift pulse rifle/flame thrower and ammos up all locked and loaded to go after newt and (unbeknownst to her) face the queen, we feel her unwavering resolve not as a heavily-armed badass out for glory or blood, or even as a soldier just doing her job, but as a mother trying to save her child in spite of almost certain death.

in that moment and the ones that follow i think ripley represents the best in all of us, just ordinary people who hope deep down that if the time came and push came to shove, we'd have the guts to rise to the occasion and think fast enough and be determined and smart and calm enough to do what ever it took to save the ones we love and prevail. i think in that way everyone can relate to ripley (both girls and boys) and that's a rare and beautiful thing

I'd add a slightly different take on it in that Aliens offers a comprehensive package - something Cameron does quite well. All of his movies have got a nice easy-to-digest nature, but there's stuff under the surface if you scratch it. It's not "omg we have subtext, aren't we smug bastards!" like some overwraught crap, but still provides material to which you come back and adds to the lasting appeal.

So there's stuff for the gun nuts, for the libertarians, for the jingoists, for the protective motherbears, because Jim doesn't spell it out for us - he provides the bare bones and lets us read our own crap into it.

The original script for Hudson's death reads:

--
Total pandemonium.

HUDSON (hysterical) Let's go! Let's go!
HICKS Fuckin' A!

Hudson screams as floor panels lift under him, and clawed arms seize him lightning fast, dragging him down.
--

Apart from the 1-word parenthetical character note, nothing to indicate any commentary deeper than "Hudson dies". It could have been Bill Paxton improvising on the day, but here we are over 20 years later trying to guess what (if any) deeper meaning Cameron intended.

As a side note, I'd like to personally give Cameron a kick in the pants for bringing "kid in peril" to the fore of action movies. It works for him because he does nice context, but it makes me want to stab other filmmakers in the eye with a fork.

leahnz is spot on...what I love about Ripley is that if she had a choice she wouldn't be there. She's a reluctant character forced into something, like most of Cameron's leads (except True Lies again).

And why Ripley is an actual hero and Hudson is NOT, is that there's no chance that Hudson would have gone back for Newt. He didn't even want to go back for his own team members when they had confirmation that a few of them were still alive.

Christian - If you ask Cameron (or Paxton) if Hudson is supposed to be presented as a loser who gets what he deserves, I'll bet you a lap-dance they'd say, "Have you seen the movie?"

During Predator 2 publicity, Paxton repeatedly called Hudson a cocky coward.

Perm - I've already laid out my intentions with referencing The Abyss. There was no bait to it. Nothing political about it or in my follow-ups. I didn't bring up Aliens or follow Christian's sophistry. I kept it to the facts. The facts about The Abyss, it's similarities to Avatar and Cameron's track record. The facts as to what helped give rise to Big Action in the 80's. You want to try passive-aggressive backhands, be able to back it up.

When am I passive-aggressive? I'll state outright that you're a right-wing fool. Which has nothing to do with your views on Avatar or 80s action for right now, I wasn't commenting on that. Just your foolishness in general. And Christian was falling into your trap of viewing things through a hardcore, unwavering political agenda. And I think he should be better than that, because...well, anyone should be.

A script is not the movie kids. And an actor's part can go from nothing to something in the course of the making. Hollywood 101.

"a hardcore, unwavering political agenda."

No, Big Perm. If I did, I would reject Ford, Hawks, Peckinpah, etc etc. My opines happened as I saw these films in that period when I was an Ayn Randian/Limbaugh listening Libertarian. That's right. And I saw the militaristic thread of the decade quite clearly. Geoff points that out well in his post. Just because others note it, doesn't mean one can't enjoy the films. You have your own hardcore, unwavering agenda on a film you love just for itself.

Now let's examine the Socialist Motifs underlying John Carpenter's THE THING...

Cameron definitely has a gun/hardware fetish, no argument about that.

Christian, I think you just admitted that your argument stems from your own '80s baggage; most of the rest of us don't have that.

And I don't think Hawks or Peckinpah can be claimed to be irretrievably right-wing, either. They're also a lot more complex than that, or else why would a gay socialist like Robin Wood adore Rio Bravo so much?

Jeff, learn to speak for yourself. Just because "most of us don't have that" doesn't mean my analysis is flawed. I could just as well say, you were barely alive in the 80's with no clue to awful Reagan RAMBO zeitgeist that informed the era so therefore you never thought about it. That's your baggage.

If we were talking about THE GRADUATE we would discuss its impact due to the counter-cultural shift and climate. That's how it is viewed today as Mark Harris "Pictures at a Revolution" shows.

The 80's didn't exist in a socio-political vacum. No art does. And just because it never occured to you personally because you only see it as an action-monster movie doesn't mean it's not there. Otherwise there'd be no film studies, no books, no nuthin'. If I was teaching an 80's film class, I'd include the politics and culture of the day to frame ALIENS -- including Cameron's feminist bent. One of my major areas of study is cultural context, as it for others who write about cinema.

Notice that critics now use AIDS as a metaphor when talking about THE THING, as does Carpenter. By your standards, that would be silly I guess.

And why would a gay socialist adore RIO BRAVO? Because it's about a group of manly cowboys who form a coalition right wrongs.

I enjoy John Wayne films too. Affirmative.

Sorry Christian, I couldn't read that last post because I was blinded by your arrogance and condescension. Maybe when I get cybernetic eye transplants I can respond.

I shouldn't have worn those mirror lenses...

Hawks would likely laugh aa film studies major reading into his work.

I'd also say that using a work for hire script like Rambo pt 2 to bolster any ideas about James Cameron is wrongheaded. Even a guy like Shane Black who wrote his own scripts on spec and put on paper exactly what he wanted was fucked over by producers and directors until he directed himself, and made a little masterpiece. So how much real influence is a hired writer going to have?

Answer from someone who works on movies...very little, generally.

Perm,

In an interview for Film Comment, Joseph McBride & Gerald Peary opined about the homosexual subtext of several Hawks films, most notably Red River. Hawks told them, "That's a goddamn silly statement to make." It's not just that he would laugh, he did laugh about this stuff.

Interpretation always reveals just as much about the interpreter as it does the object being interpreted. Often more.

Well, I ain't gonna lie, first time I saw Aliens I was either in hs or college, on video, I'm pretty sure but didn't notice anything leaning particularly right or some pro-military message. Maybe some standard type of the pentagon calling the shots, all are expendable kind of thing but now I'm not sure if that's Alien or Aliens or some other movie for that matter. I do remember liking it very much. More than the original and that great line about "have you not been keeping up w/current events? We're getting our asses kicked!"

I don't know if I would've considered Ridley "everywoman." Maybe quasi badass. I don't think she would've signed up for a possible suicide mission but from what I remember my perception of her was one who'd do the dirty work and not whine about it. Sarah Connor had a quick transformation from naive coffeeshop waitress to herione.

I really liked True Lies EXCEPT I was bothered by another showing of Arab Terrorists. I thought it was really lazy at the least. When the battery died on the camcorder when dude is proclaiming his diabolical plot was funny and I thought could've been a new spin on them but it could've been anyone and kinda wish it had been.

I'll have to go back and watch these films. Only now, I hope they're not ruined. I remember watching Dark Knight that first day it came out and really enjoying it. Then, like after it blows up and was more than a fluke opening w/ raking in all the cash and all the bottomfeeders had to latch on it some way or another and then it proclaimed that George Bush was Batman, I was like "huh?!" Then I ended up seeing it a second time and it kinda ruined it for me. Not so much being Anti-Bush but I just wanted that world to remain that world. It's not it was so subversive the first time, or that there weren't some parts that could've balanced Bush's position on the war in Iraq, I just want to enjoy a movie for what it is.

Though nothing's springing to mind at the second, there have been times where underlying themes or political positions are so strong that they I'm taken out of the flick. This can be sort of "preaching" that takes place in movies, even when I completely agree what's being said. I don't begrudge filmmakers trying to get a message across. Certainly w/docs that's the intent and some family films. I don't know what it is but like the first time I found out Jerry Lewis and some of the performers were being paid for the Labor Day Telethon. (He's hasn't been for a long time). It just killed it. I don't think it's wrong or that I'm just being naive, I just don't want my entertainment tainted when it's not supposed be.

This conversation is supremely boring.

Okay, I'm back. First of all, Christian:

"why would a gay socialist adore RIO BRAVO? Because it's about a group of manly cowboys"

If a lot of other people had written this, you'd be lambasting them for queer-baiting. Rightly.

Second, I'm not the one who needs to learn to speak for himself - you're the one who launched a provocative, simplistic thesis and is refusing to see any complexity or shades of gray. Like I said, a lot like a hysterical mirror-image Nicol.

Back to the main point, this all started with this:

..."ALIENS...which Cameron already made when it cool to revel in xenophobic jingoism."

So subject on trial is the movie Aliens, and the charge is "Xenophobia and jingoism". I can't really argue against xenophobia, except to say that so is The Thing (both versions), and also to say, it's to an acceptable degree (as opposed to, say, 300) as brought to life by intelligent writing and direction and moderated by complications (like having the Company be a co-antagonist. As for jingoism, I think that's been pretty effectively debunked by the arguments on display.

If the charges were 'reveling in all manner of military hardware fetishism and kickassery' then that would have to be a big Guilty verdict. Fine.

But also, just as it's important to see a movie in the context of the time when it was produced, it's important to not do that when it's inappropriate. If I feel like it, I can diminish On the Waterfront as being just about Elia Kazan's attempt to rationalize and justify his HUAC collaboration...OR I can look at the film and recognize that it transcends those petty issues of the moment and stands the test of time as a statement about deeper, broader issues. And a good film viewer shouldn't let themselves be boxed in like that.

Martin: would you prefer for us to be talking about, say, Kristen Stewart's vagina? (I might not want you to answer that.)

There's a wide gap between Kristin Stewart's vagina and the political themes in James Cameron's films.

I can't speak for what Hawks would think. He could laugh as would Ford. Fellini might not laugh. Hitchcock might smile. Carpenter might listen. Soderbergh might nod. Either you're opposed to film analysis or you're not.

Fortunately others are not or we'd be devoid of great writing from essays, books...and blogs. People still debate what STAR WARS signifies. Or HALLOWEEN. Take your pick. Paul Schrader wrote film theory. The French critic/filmmakers read road-maps into Hawks, Fuller and Hitchcock. Tarantino can dispense non-stop theory and analysis. What does that reveal about them?

As for TRUE LIES, it's still a mean-spirited film (tho technically excellent as befits Cameron). Bullying, quasi-mysogynist and xenophobic. That's why Arab-American groups protested:

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/16/movies/arab-americans-protest-true-lies.html

I guess that reveals something about them too.

The strain of conflicted militarism (and feminism) runs through Cameron's work so it's not a closed subject just because somebody refuses to think about the implications, whatever they may be or not be. I bet Cameron thinks about it too.

Anyway, as Big Perm, jeff and martin explode through my screen to take me down, I'm exiting this thread like Hudson with a pulse rifle:

Oh you want some? You want some too? Let's go....Let's go....

One more salvo...

"why would a gay socialist adore RIO BRAVO?
Because it's about a group of manly cowboys who form a coalition to right wrongs."

"If a lot of other people had written this, you'd be lambasting them for queer-baiting. Rightly."

Jeff, you called Robin Wood a "gay socialist" and brought up his reverence for RIO BRAVO as if that excludes him from loving the film on its own terms. I guess I think of Wood as a writer first, not "gay socialist." So your j'accuse of "queer-baiting" is bullshit. I made a joke, son.

Here they come! Let's go! Let's go! Fuckin' A!

Contra Martin, I just want to say I think this thread is easily the most interesting conversation this blog has seen in months, possibly years.

Exactly Chairs, Hawks was a guy that did, not a guy who talked about other people's shit. He single handedly saved Bill Friedkin's career by telling him to stop making fancy movies that no one cares about and do something simple...thus, The Exorsist. How the fuck do you spell Excorsist anyway? I'm using two spellings here, both of which are probably wrong.

Arabs may have protested True Lies, but they also protested The Siege...because of course the idea of New York being attacked by terrorists was completely ludicrous and racist. Luckily, the protesters taught us better.

I'm sad that martin's bored. He should masturbate, that's generally sort of fun. But...not always.

Big Perm Sub-Text: I make movies and nobody should think about their meanings because I don't.

Don't be that guy.

Well, I think you can always look into things, but I also think a lot of times it becomes as masturbatory as what martin will be doing to relieve his boredom. It's especially funny to me where people read into the themes and such things that were bonafide mistakes on set and there was no time to correct them so they left the mistakes. For me, the problem with book larnin' is that it usually doesn't account for the realities of production.

I had a friend who was an academic and had lots of lofty ideas about this horseshit, then he got on set and realized that a lot of times, shit happens.

Also, it's a mistake when you read things wrong, like you did. Ha I win!

Christian,

You may not like it but Perm has got a point.

In Making Movies, Sidney Lumet recounted asking Akira Kurosawa why he chose to frame a shot a particular way in Ran. Kurosawa replied that any further to the left, you'd see the highway & any further to the right, you see the Sony factory. Neither image being entirely desirable in a movie set in medieval Japan.

Anyone who has spent any time on a working set knows this score: many decisions are made out of practical production necessity & don't reflect grand creative intent or deeper subtext, unless one subscribes to a fundamentally paranoid view of Jungian synchronicity.

I am not opposed to film analysis at all but that doesn't obscure that a lot of it can be bollocks. Obtuse mental jerk off with little basis in reality & with little appeal or practical use to anyone outside of 3rd rate intellects with self-esteem issues cloistered in academic Siberia somewhere.

And, yes, film scholars applying their personal biases in their work happens all the time. I defy anyone to read Susan Faludi or Douglas Kellner, for just two examples, & not realize that they had a very personal axe to grind & then proof texted their examples to fit their pre-existing theories. Part of what makes folks like that so irritating is that, like too many academics, they present their subjective conclusions as if they were objective fact. This is one of the reasons why the aforementioned Robin Wood is so refreshing: not only is he seriously friggin' smart & articulate, he has the self-awareness to own up to all of the biases of his personal experience up front.

"The French critic/filmmakers read road-maps into Hawks, Fuller and Hitchcock. Tarantino can dispense non-stop theory and analysis. What does that reveal about them?"

As to the former, well, it kinda reveals that some of them really wanted to be directors. Do you truly think it's an accident that some of the most ardent inititial boosters of the auteur theory - the undeniable start of engendering a respect for a director's contribution that simply didn't exist prior to its introduction - were aspiring directors themselves &, as a result, had a vested interest in the acceptance of this theory? As for the latter, personally, I find the vast majority of Tarantino's cinematic comments to fall more into the category of fanboy gushing than theory or analysis but it would be impossible to dispute that his obviously encyclopedic knowledge of film is constantly reflected in his work.

Any half way decent work of art can be subjected to multiple lines of interpretation but people usually choose the interpretation they feel most comfortable with, revealing as much about themselves as anything else. People see what they want to see in art when, sometimes, a lot of times really, it's like James Brown once said: "What it is IS what it is."

If only Hawks had gotten ahold of Kubrick: "Look Stan, you got some nice pictures here. But no talking! I'm falling asleep in my godddam chair. When I made HATARI! we kept the story going with animal shots. That's some fancy candlelight ya got there, kid, but throw in a couple horses and snappy patter, then you got a scene."

I work in the industry too so I'm well aware of the behind the scenes variations that can affect the final film. You could make that point about any work of art. Picasso had a cold the day he started Guernica. Dostoevsky spilled coffee on a hundred pages and had to rewrite. Hitchcock just happened to have a bird of prey behind Tony Perkins. Harrison Ford had the shits. And so on. The work still has to stand on its own.

I went to a heavy film theory school, and was hardly the proponent of the Foucault/Derrida/Mulvey theoretical strangulation of cinema, and I clashed with Professors because of that. But cultural context is a fairly quantifiable way of looking at films, since you can measure the clothes, music, technology, politics, and how that informs the work. As in it's easier to point out that STAR WARS reflected the blowback from the 70's cynicism and naturalism -- nothing wanking or overreaching there. Hell, Soderbergh wrote a book on Richard Lester with his own thematic insights. It doesn't mean Lester agrees or not, but it's part of what moves the interest. Should Robin Wood not have spent years on Hawks, exposing his films to different generation (even if we differ on their meanings)?

One of my teachers, Anton Kaes, was a great influence; his BFI monograph on M is a masterpiece, and he rightly fuses the surveillance of Peter Lorre to the Nazi paranoia that was turning neighbor against neighbor, also showing how this mobilizes a community into a violent mob. Did Lang mean all that? He sure as hell meant some of it. It's a theme that ran through his work as do the other important filmmakers we're interested in. That doesn't mean artists use their conscious to create, as theory is at odds with creation; the analysis has to come later. At The Hot Blog.

(wake up martin)

And to say people chose their interpretation is stating the obvious. People chose to make films or don't; to write about them or not; to view them as trifles or achievements. If you're on this site I assume you enjoy debating, discussing them. And I love making and watching movies -- including ALIENS -- so I'm going to keep talking about them because IMHO it's the most powerful art form in the history of the world.

Game over, man! Game over!

Perm, it was actually THE FRENCH CONNECTION that Hawks suggested Friedkin do. At the time, Friedkin confirmed the story, but typically, he now claims otherwise.

"hey ripley, don't worry, me and my squad of ultimate badasses will protect you...

(yay!)

...check it out..."

all this talk of hudson, one of his most hudsonesque moments in his dearly departed honour:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sysu8HsbJAw&feature=related

"...we got nukes, we got knives, sharp sticks...

(knock it off, hudson!)"

"Hey Billy, get the hell off this arty farty kick. No more homo movies. The Duke is still pulling 'em in, right? Do that Blatty horror thing with lotsa dream and religious symbology and that little gal masturbatin' with a cross. It's kinda like THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD...but with Satan. Make the best devil movie ever, kid!"

Guardian Avatar review non-review. And Sun definitely-review-review.

Perm - … Which has nothing to do with your views on Avatar or 80s action for right now, I wasn't commenting on that.

…Christian was falling into your trap of viewing things through a hardcore, unwavering political agenda

Days old thanks to Typepad meltdown, but those two back-to-back sentences negate each other. I can't posses an unwavering view while my comments don't.

As for Abyss/Avatar comparisons, I think Nick says it very well.

Cameron has made very cold movies and movies that embrace raw emotion and Avatar truly does feel like the marriage of those worlds. The Abyss did it well. This does it better. This feels genuine. It may sometimes border on familiar [the Dances with Wolves comparison is a fair one, but on the same note so are Dune, The Lord of the Rings, and Princess Mononoke] and we've seen the "Corporations and military are the ultimate evil" vibe before, in fact quite effectively in previous Cameron films.

http://chud.com/articles/articles/21826/1/REVIEW-AVATAR/Page1.html

"Avatar is The Abyss Redux..."

martin s, since you brought it up again, nick's comparison of 'the abyss' to 'avatar' is a tenuous (and debatable) one at best made in passing, while your comment that 'avatar' is just 'the abyss redux' is simply off base.

if pressed to make a comparison there are vague connections in so far as 'avatar' takes place in a hostile environment involving aliens and the films share an anti-war theme, but beyond that similarities end and the story, execution and themes of harmony with nature, imperialism, manifest destiny and the massacre of native peoples in 'avatar' are so completely disparate from cameron's earlier film as to be truly grasping at straws to say 'avatar' is in any way a redux of 'the abyss' (and claiming so based on seeing the 'avatar' trailer is sort of bizarre, given that that trailer shows basically nothing of the movie)

Leah - my basic premise is bearing out truth, and that is why I linked to Nick's review. Are we going to also ignore that he simply flipped the gender and status of his love interests from Titanic? Do we not acknowledge Michelle Rodriguez is Vasquez reborn?

This is what he does. It's only more blatant when it's a direct sequel because he has to use established ground.

If you want another connecting rod to Abyss. How does Bud make contact with the aliens? By using a high-tech, prototype that allows him to breathe water. So Bud, via a mechanical macguffin, is allowed to merge with the environment of the aliens. Does that sound familiar?

That's a strained argument, Martin. Bud doesn't actually interact with the aliens, in the sense of having conversations or actual 'interaction' with them, plus that only happens in the last 20 minutes of The Abyss, where I'm assuming that the bulk of Avatar is Sam Worthington's adventures in Avatarland (presumably following the same story structure as Dances With Wolves).

"Leah - my basic premise is bearing out truth, and that is why I linked to Nick's review. Are we going to also ignore that he simply flipped the gender and status of his love interests from Titanic? Do we not acknowledge Michelle Rodriguez is Vasquez reborn?"

what? exactly how is your basic premise 'bearing out truth', martin s? your basic premise was, quite clearly,'avatar is the abyss redux". this is what you posited.

if the issue is cameron recycling archetypes from his previous films/other films, etc, that's a different conversation altogether and NOT what you stated. at least stick to what you said.

i'm fascinated that you'd even want to debate a film YOU HAVEN'T SEEN. that takes a certain kind of arrogance. what is the deal with that? i wouldn't even consider debating a film i haven't seen because i wouldn't know what the hell i was talking about.

"If you want another connecting rod to Abyss. How does Bud make contact with the aliens? By using a high-tech, prototype that allows him to breathe water. So Bud, via a mechanical macguffin, is allowed to merge with the environment of the aliens. Does that sound familiar?"

good grief, martin, that's just THIN. i've noticed you have a knack for twisting things to suit your purposes after the fact to bolster your argument, which doesn't make you right, it just makes you canny.

bud wears a deep-sea diving suit to go out into the deep ocean (yes, with revolutionary re-breathing fluid to give him extra time) on his own planet to diffuse a bomb and save the world. he does not go out to encounter the alien interlopers, in fact he thinks he's sacrificing himself to the abyss. but don't let the facts get in the way of twisting them to suit your theory.

or, a man puts on what is in effect a 'space suit' to enter a hostile environment and encounters aliens? hardly new or unique to 'the abyss'.

equating bud's action of putting on a diving suit at the end of 'the abyss' to diffuse a bomb to save his own planet (or putting on a space suit if you look at it that way) and then encountering aliens as being 'the same' as jake inhabiting his avatar to become an inside man/industrial spy and then going native on Pandora...sorry, that's just very weak.

you'd could also compare the crew of deep core using 'big geek' to work underwater to the marine's use of the eva suits on pandora, which is still just incidental and inconsequential, but at least you'd know that if you waited until you actually saw the movie in question and THEN dug your heels in re: calling it 'the abyss redux', which i can't imagine you would still do but i guess you never know

Jeff - Water-breathing and Avatars are both plot devices to propel the protagonist into a unique relationship with the alien race that allows him to interact with them. Just because the place in the storyline and type of interaction is different doesn't change the fact that it's the same device at work.

Abyss - Bud, (blue collar deep-sea explorer)chosen to use experimental, military tech allowing him a unique interaction with the alien race.

Avatar - Sully, (blue collar military grunt), chosen to use experimental deep-space exploration tech allowing him a unique interaction with the alien race.

I'll hold off from drawing parallels between Weaver and Mastrantonio's character until I know how instrumental Weaver's character is in the entire process. If she's the defacto science leader of a "rag-tag" group and architect of the Avatar system...

What's left? The experimental mining rig in Abyss was funded by private enterprise. What is it in Avatar?

The failure in Abyss was Cameron's attempt to sell love as the Fifth Element. The love/hate/love reborn relationship was too heavy for an already complicated sci-fi flick. So he re-tooled it as comedy for True Lies and it worked. His success at Romeo-Juliet romance worked in The Terminator as "Love Across Time", so he re-tooled it for Titanic. With Avatar, what relationship is at its core?

As for alien "interaction", that's tied directly to what Cameron was capable of doing with cutting-edge technology of its time. The motivation behind Abyss, to push the envelope, was the same for Avatar. He writes the story to fit his VFX's ablities, just like the Terminator films.

Leah - As much as you post, I highly doubt you're so cautious about what subject you weigh in on.

What's "bearing out" is other people who know Cameron are seeing it, also. I linked to Nick's because he loved the movie and was still able to point out the Cameron potpourri.

you have a knack for twisting things to suit your purposes...

OK. Here's you -

bud wears a deep-sea diving suit to go out into the deep ocean (yes, with revolutionary re-breathing fluid to give him extra time)

That's a plot device. Without it, how does Cameron propel his protagonist into direct contact with the alien race, since all other encounters have been reactionary.

...on his own planet

That's a location. Is Pandora not the homeworld of Sully's Avatar? Isn't that the point of the entire Avatar system? To make the planet your own?

...to diffuse a bomb and save the world. he does not go out to encounter the alien interlopers, in fact he thinks he's sacrificing himself to the abyss.

That's character motivation. Doesn't Sully believe he's going to Pandora to take its resources because they are needed to save Earth? While I can't speak to sacrifice, yet, isn't he replacing a twin who died?

or, a man puts on what is in effect a 'space suit' to enter a hostile environment and encounters aliens? hardly new or unique to 'the abyss'.

I never made that argument. It's a starter and not a full plotline.

equating bud's action of putting on a diving suit at the end of 'the abyss' to diffuse a bomb to save his own planet (or putting on a space suit if you look at it that way) and then encountering aliens as being 'the same' as jake inhabiting his avatar to become an inside man/industrial spy and then going native on Pandora...

Once again, you're mixing plot, actions and motivations. Bud doesn't encounter the alien world at the very end, he enters the alien world in the first act. It's called the deep sea. That's a plot point. Sully's actions may make him a spy, but why is he propelled to do this? Cameron could have made him a spy by trade and bypassed all the twin nonsense, but he didn't. Why? What's Sully's motivations? Is it a secret that they are at Pandora to deplete it's resources? Was he set up like Ripley? Or does he know, like Bud, that the end goal of the mission is to save Earth.

"Leah - As much as you post, I highly doubt you're so cautious about what subject you weigh in on."

oh snap, martin s, you got some ego on you there. i just don't quite understand what's going on, huh? but you do, of course.

how about this: i highly doubt you realise that arguing about a movie you haven't even seen makes you look like a pompous prat. you certainly are stubborn, i'll give you that.

you can misrepresent, twist and cherry-pick details to suit your theory all you like but it doesn't make it valid. 'avatar is the abyss redux', this is what you said, and what i weighed in on. we can talk about cameron archetypes separately if you like but that's not the subject at hand, is it?

and please provide some links to where 'other people' are calling avatar 'the abyss redux' or similar (other than that link to 'nick' which says no such thing anyway, the comparisons are fleeting, tenuous and subjective), oddly i've yet to see ONE. i've seen several reviewers opine on cameron's use of/recycled archetypes, but not a single person (besides you) who posits 'avatar' is 'the abyss revisited'. i look forward to some links in support of this specific assertion.

most of those rebuttals you've listed above make little sense, because you've negated them based on your twisted theory, rather than basing your theory on the actual films.

from your previous comment:

"Abyss - Bud, (blue collar deep-sea explorer)chosen to use experimental, military tech allowing him a unique interaction with the alien race."

so? you've cherry-picked one scene at the END of 'the abyss', the details and context of which you've conveniently ignored, and then built your comparisons and assumptions around this dubious premise. you persist with this misrepresentation because without 'jake is bud' your 'avatar is the abyss redux' theory disintegrates.

(if JBD was still around he would love my annoying bullet points)

- bud is an engineer drilling for oil, not an explorer
- bud uses the experimental re-breathing fluid because he volunteers for the wing-and-a-prayer suicide mission to disarm a bomb, for which the one sensible military guy remaining on deep core suggests using the re-breathing fluid on the spur of the moment, providing a last-minute solution to help keep bud alive long enough to disarm the bomb
- bud is not chosen by anyone to use military tech
- bud expects to die
- bud's unique interaction with the aliens is completely unexpected by anyone on deep core

"That's a plot device. Without it, how does Cameron propel his protagonist into direct contact with the alien race, since all other encounters have been reactionary."

huh? yes, cameron uses this scene to enable bud's interaction with the aliens and enable the final reveal. so? the connection you draw here between bud and jake is absurd. you pick one sequence to validate your 'jake is bud-mach-2' assertion, and you can twist it around as much as you like but it's thin as tissue and doesn't hold water.

"Doesn't Sully believe he's going to Pandora to take its resources because they are needed to save Earth?"

"Sully's actions may make him a spy, but why is he propelled to do this? Cameron could have made him a spy by trade and bypassed all the twin nonsense, but he didn't. Why? What's Sully's motivations? Is it a secret that they are at Pandora to deplete it's resources? Was he set up like Ripley? Or does he know, like Bud, that the end goal of the mission is to save Earth"

wtf, that is one serious mass of attempted rationalisations. MAYBE YOU SHOULD WATCH THE MOVIE! (or both movies, for that matter)

first of all, there is no 'mission' imperative in 'the abyss' apart from the military retrieving their nukes; bud saving the world is unexpected and borne out of necessity after unpredictable, snowballing events require someone to step up to the plate in the dying minutes of the film (have you actually watched 'the abyss'?).

further, this has ABSOLUTELY NO bearing on jake's character, who's imperative is to infiltrate the aliens and gain their trust so that their land can be exploited. and to answer your question: NO, jake is a jarhead and a bit of a thicky at that, who takes his brother's place as the infiltrator because he's promised an operation to cure his paralysis. his primary motivation is selfish, to regain use of his legs. and as it turns out, the only world he wants to save is pandora. but i can't wait to see how you twist this around to suit your 'jake is bud' paradigm.

"Once again, you're mixing plot, actions and motivations."

I'M mixing plot, action and motivations? that's PRICELESS, martin

i'm afraid you have that bassackwrds, my dear, and it's YOU in fact who are doing the the very thing you accuse me of by cherry picking and misrepresenting pieces of 'the abyss' and 'avatar' - A MOVIE YOU HANVENT EVEN SEEN - to cobble together a thesis that suits your wonky-ass assertion.

(and fyi, there is no mining rig in 'the abyss', they're drilling for oil. further, the crew of deep core could be doing anything down in the deep ocean - drilling for oil is inconsequential to the plot - whereas the mining of pandora is pivotal and inextricable to the plot and themes of the film. therefore, lindsey as the architect of the deep core rig is a convenient device to get her there but beyond that it's largely immaterial to the plot of 'the abyss'; at no time is lindsey 'the leader' of the 'rag tag' deep core crew, in fact she's rather a disliked outsider, and in terms of plot function lindsey bears no resemblance to grace in 'avatar'. but i'm sure your find a way to twist it around so she does in 'martin s's world'.

i could go on but i can't be bothered.

does cameron recycle/reconfigure his archetypes? yes. is 'avatar the abyss redux'? not even close.

but your pompous need to prevail while insinuating that i don't quite know what i'm talking about calls to mind one of quint's lines in 'jaws', about having the education to admit when you're wrong. of course quint was nuts, like i must be trying to reason with someone who would never admit they could be mistaken. about a movie they haven't seen.

(ftr i didn't have time to proofread that before when i posted so apologies for any confusing typos/errors)

Martin, if your point is that themes and motifs in The Abyss are being rehashed, I can't argue with you. The stories seem very substantially different, however (which I'm pretty sure is what Leah is saying above). Just for example, the aliens in The Abyss really only exist as Macguffins to motivate everything else, with the central conflict being between the rig guys and the military. If Avatar was a movie where we never actually see the Na'Vi, I'd be a lot more likely to agree with you (but obviously that's not what happens).

Jeff - what you said is different than Leah - yours makes sense. That's a solid point about the purpose of the aliens because it fits Cameron's film lineage of technology shaping the story. If you haven't read Battle Angel, grab it and you can see how it's the perfect progression of T2, though it was written before it.

If I'm an a-hole to you at some point in the future, remind me of this discussion. I owe you one for understanding script deconstruction.

...And Leah...Let me wade through to find your points...

avatar is the abyss redux', this is what you said, and what i weighed in on...

One more time. Here's me - "Human enters alien world and sides with benevolent but misunderstood aliens to defeat aggressive human military"

It's the same plotline from the same writer/director. That's one of his true talents; the ability to present his older work as new.

you've cherry-picked one scene at the END of 'the abyss', the details and context of which you've conveniently ignored...

It doesn't matter where the scene is, it has the same purpose for the protagonist in each movie.

Details and context...did I say Avatar was a sequel or a remake? No. I used "Redux" meaning "to bring back". As in he "brought back" the plotline for The Abyss.

bud is an engineer drilling for oil, not an explorer...

So Indiana Jones is an archeologist, not an adventurer?

bud uses the experimental re-breathing fluid because he volunteers(Plot Point)for the wing-and-a-prayer suicide mission to disarm a bomb(Character Motivation)for which the one sensible military guy remaining on deep core(Sub-Plot Pointsuggests using the re-breathing fluid on the spur of the moment(Macguffin)providing a last-minute solution to help keep bud alive long enough to disarm the bomb(Plot Point)

bud is not chosen by anyone to use military tech

Then how did he get it? You just wrote the SEAL "suggests using the re-breathing fluid on the spur of the moment". Who did he "suggest" it too? Big Cowboy? The SEAL chose Bud. It may have been at the last minute, but that's the point of a Macguffin. They're catalysts to propel the main characters from one scenario to the next. The Avatar system is also a Macguffin.

bud expects to die

So Sully is not concerned at any point that his mission is life threatening?

bud's unique interaction with the aliens is completely unexpected by anyone on deep core

That's their POV. It is expected by the audience or else what is the point of the movie?

bud saving the world is unexpected and borne out of necessity after unpredictable, snowballing events...

Did Cameron write a script or did he improvise the entire thing? Did he not have a goal as to where his character was heading for the climax? Does Sully or Bud expect to side with the Na'Vi? No. But it happens. Cameron's choice. Again, Redux is not Remake.

there is no mining rig in 'the abyss', they're drilling for oil.further, the crew of deep core could be doing anything down in the deep ocean - drilling for oil is inconsequential to the plot - whereas the mining of pandora is pivotal and inextricable to the plot and themes of the film.

Is the ship's purpose more important in Avatar? Yes. But what the platform does in Abyss is not inconsequential. The two ships serve the same purpose and utilization. Cameron did this because it allows two disparate groups to come into conflict. Turn the Abyss platform into a military base and you have no conflict.

"Martin, if your point is that themes and motifs in The Abyss are being rehashed, I can't argue with you"

just out of curiosity, jeff, have you seen 'avatar'? is so fair enough, if not i don't see how you could either argue or agree with martin s.

---

martin s: blah blah blah. tiresome

me: "you've cherry-picked one scene at the END of 'the abyss', the details and context of which you've conveniently ignored...

you: "It doesn't matter where the scene is, it has the same purpose for the protagonist in each movie."

no. the purpose for bud getting into the diving gear and going down into the abyss is to save his woman, his crew, the world, and REVEAL the aliens for what they are, which until the very end of the movie is UNCLEAR. the purpose for jake inhabiting his avatar is to become a spy and fall in love with neytiri. NEXT

me: "bud is an engineer drilling for oil, not an explorer...

you: So Indiana Jones is an archeologist, not an adventurer?"

ridiculous. bud works on an oil rig as a self confessed 'paper-pusher', he is NOT an explorer in any sense and the comparison to indiana jones is absurd. NEXT

"bud uses the experimental re-breathing fluid because he volunteers(Plot Point)for the wing-and-a-prayer suicide mission to disarm a bomb(Character Motivation)for which the one sensible military guy remaining on deep core(Sub-Plot Pointsuggests using the re-breathing fluid on the spur of the moment(Macguffin)providing a last-minute solution to help keep bud alive long enough to disarm the bomb(Plot Point)"

uh, your point? this was my synopsis of the scene in question, the details of which you ignored. but thank you for filling in the plot elements and character motivations like i needed your instruction and revealing yourself as a condescending dick! NEXT

me: "bud is not chosen by anyone to use military tech

you: Then how did he get it? You just wrote the SEAL "suggests using the re-breathing fluid on the spur of the moment". Who did he "suggest" it too? Big Cowboy? The SEAL chose Bud. It may have been at the last minute, but that's the point of a Macguffin. They're catalysts to propel the main characters from one scenario to the next. The Avatar system is also a Macguffin."

WRONG. bud is NOT picked by the seal, he VOLUNTEERS, and in fact i'm fairly certain someone else from the surviving crew volunteers first and he overrides them, but i can't remember who. and i know exactly what a macguffin is so you can cram you condescension. also, i never said the avatar system wasn't a macguffin. NEXT

me: "bud expects to die

you: "So Sully is not concerned at any point that his mission is life threatening?"

good grief. bud's entire motivation going into the abyss is to SACRIFICE himself, KNOWING he is going to die. jake does no such thing. if you can't see the difference, what can i say. NEXT

me: "bud's unique interaction with the aliens is completely unexpected by anyone on deep core

you: "That's their POV. It is expected by the audience or else what is the point of the movie?"

nope. the audience does not know what's going to happen to bud; cameron has a nasty habit of killing off his lead characters. NEXT

you: "Did Cameron write a script or did he improvise the entire thing? Did he not have a goal as to where his character was heading for the climax?"

that's just a stupid question. NEXT

"Does Sully or Bud expect to side with the Na'Vi? No. But it happens. Cameron's choice. Again, Redux is not Remake."

for fuck's sake! let me spell it out for you in detail:

AT NO TIME DOES BUD 'SIDE' WITH THE ALIENS; BUD DOES NOT EVEN KNOW THERE ARE ALIENS OR WHAT'S DOWN THERE IN THE DEEP WITH THEM FOR MOST OF THE FILM, HE NEVER SEES THEM (UNTIL THE VERY END OF THE MOVIE) AND COFFEY KEEPS TELLING HIM THE 'UNSUBS' ARE RUSSIAN SPY SUBS; IT'S ONLY LINDSEY WHO SUSPECTS THAT THE CREATURES SHE AND SHE ALONE KEEPS SEEING MIGHT BE ALIEN, BUT SHE DOESN'T KNOW FOR SURE AND CAN'T CONVINCE THE CREW, NOT EVEN BUD.

THE CREW HAS NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE DEALING WITH -A PREVIOUSLY UNKNOWN DEEP SEA SPECIES IS POSITED AT ONE POINT AFTER LINDSEY SEES SOMETHING - THEY ARE THOROUGHLY PREOCCUPIED FIRST AND FOREMOST WITH SURVIVAL, THE MILITARY BUILD-UP ON THE SURFACE AND COFFEY, WHO'S BECOMING INCREASINGLY IRRATIONAL AND STEALS/ARMS THE NUKE; AFTER THE ENCOUNTER IN THE THRID ACT WITH THE WATER TENTACLE, THE CREW SUSPECTS AFTER SEEING WHAT THE TENTACLE CAN DO THAT IT MIGHT BE CONTROLLED BY SOME KIND OF INTELLIGENCE DOWN IN THE ABYSS, BUT THEY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT IS; AT THIS POINT THINGS RAPIDLY DETERIORATE WHEN COFFEY FREAKS OUT AT THE 'RUSSIAN' WATER TENTACLE AND USES LITTLE GEEK TO DELIVER THE NUKE TO 'THE RUSSIANS' IN THE ABYSS, THUS ENDANGERING ALL THEIR LIVES AND NECESSITATING SOMEONE TO GO INTO THE ABYSS TO TRY TO DISARM THE BOMB BEFORE IT KILLS THEM; BUD VOLUNTEERS FOR THE SUICIDE MISSION TO SAVE THE CREW AND WHATEVER UNKNOWN SPECIES MIGHT LIVE THE ABYSS. BUD HAS NO CLUE WHAT IS GOING ON UNTIL HE IS SAVED BY THE CREATURES AND TAKEN TO THE SURFACE IN THEIR SHIP IN THE FINAL MOMENTS OF THE FILM, WHEN THEY ALL REALISE IT'S ALIENS.

there. now, would you please explain to me how at any point bud 'SIDES' with the aliens, which suggest collusion or at the very least some kind of interaction with the aliens, being as bud doesn't even know there ARE aliens until he is rescued in the final minutes of the movie? you can't, because he doesn't, you're just making shit up to suit your thesis.

me: "there is no mining rig in 'the abyss', they're drilling for oil.further, the crew of deep core could be doing anything down in the deep ocean - drilling for oil is inconsequential to the plot - whereas the mining of pandora is pivotal and inextricable to the plot and themes of the film.

you: "Is the ship's purpose more important in Avatar? Yes. But what the platform does in Abyss is not inconsequential. The two ships serve the same purpose and utilization. Cameron did this because it allows two disparate groups to come into conflict. Turn the Abyss platform into a military base and you have no conflict."

what are you on about, what ships? the only plot purpose the oil platform serves in 'abyss' is to destroy deep core below it (when the crane breaks in the hurricane) instigating the human drama of the crew being thrown into survival mode. apart from that the rigs being petroleum-related is completely incidental and serves no purpose to the plot. there is no conflict with anyone on the topside rig in 'the abyss', and i'm not sure what the rest of your paragraph is getting at but i don't really care and at this rate i doubt it's relevent.

and finally:

you: "One more time. Here's me - "Human enters alien world and sides with benevolent but misunderstood aliens to defeat aggressive human military.

It's the same plotline from the same writer/director."

one more time, here's me:

NOPE. the problem with your statement above, and with your theory from the beginning, is that is NOT the plot of 'the abyss' no matter how much you would like to twist it. so you're entire theory is BULLSHIT.

bud NEVER 'sides' with the aliens to 'defeat' the human military, that is completely spurius; he and the crew are preoccupied with simple survival for most of the film, and for the ENTIRE movie bud doesn't even KNOW what is down there with them in the deep, coffee convinced it's russians; bud only realises what is going on at the very END of the movie, when he is rescued by the creatures and brought to the surface in their ship. only then does he get that they're aliens with space ships.

again, 'bud sides with the aliens to defeat aggressive human military' suggests a collusion or interaction or at the very least KNOWLEDGE OF the aliens and this simply DOES NOT OCCUR in the film; it is neither the story nor the theme of 'the abyss', being utter wishful thinking on your part in trying to twist the plot of 'the abyss' to suit your comparison.

so there goes your theory, and frankly, you can kinda suck on it

Leah, I haven't seen it. So I could be way off base, but from everything I know (all promotional materials, every review I've read) it seems pretty clear what the basic thrust of the movie is. Maybe I'm completely wrong, in which case I'm a huge hypocrite, but friends of mine who saw it at Harry Knowles' birthday fete seemed to confirm my thoughts.

jeff, your friends said to you, 'you know, the themes and motifs of 'the abyss' are rehashed in 'avatar'. honestly? that's seems weird but ok, fair enough (not to say that they don't share an anti-war theme, which i've acknowledged from the beginning, but beyond that the themes of the two films are so divergent as to be dissimilar)

re: the plots of 'abyss' and 'avatar':

"One more time. Here's me - "Human enters alien world and sides with benevolent but misunderstood aliens to defeat aggressive human military.

It's the same plotline from the same writer/director."

jeff, since you're not a condescending wank, can you please give me your honest thoughts on this:

i don't know if you read my post above but if not i'll try to quickly recap: the fatal flaw in martin's thesis above is that this in NOT the plot of 'the abyss'; the people on deep core, including bud, are unaware of the existence of the aliens, benevolent and misunderstood or otherwise, until the very end of the film.

the only person in the underwater crew who even sees the 'light creatures' is lindsey, NOT BUD, and even then she does not know what they are and nobody listens to/believes her until the the third act when the tentacle materialises and they all start to wonder what is happening, that it might NOT be the russians like coffey believes. they've lost contact with the surface so they don't know what is happening with the huge wave/etc, and the aliens only reveal themselves and their ships at the end of the film.

so, the deep core crew is unaware that aliens are in the abyss for pretty much the entire movie, thus making it impossible for bud to 'side' with something he doesn't know exists (bud in fact doesn't 'side' with or against anything or anyone for the duration of the film except coffey, but not because he's a navy seal/military man, but because he goes nuts and tries to blow them up along with the 'russians' he believes are in the abyss); so if nobody in the crew actually knows there are aliens in the trench until they reveal themselves at the very end and nobody can take the side of something against the human military that one is unaware/unsure exists, how on earth can martin s' hypothesis that the plots of 'the abyss' and 'avatar' are the same be possible?

it's seems nonsensical to me but i am genuinely curious what you or anybody for that matter thinks about the comparison (i know seeing 'avatar' first would help, obviously)

I think if everybody were to sit down in a room, this whole debate would be easily settled in about two minutes and everybody would probably agree.

I agree with you, Leah, that the plots seem to be vastly disparate (I will be shocked if Avatar's story structure isn't this: 1. Jake gets injured. 2. Jake volunteers to become an avatar and infiltrate the Na'Vi. 3. Jake's avatar falls in love with the princess and has doubts about the human military mission because the Na'Vi are all noble and shit. 4. Jake must choose between humans and Na'Vi and it all ends with a big battle between the two sides) while the motifs and themes seem to be basically the same, and I think you and Martin S. are basically just talking past each other.

but that the themes look to be very identical.

Sorry about that dangling half-phrase at the end there, that was a mistake.

hell in a handbasket, reading over what i'd written last night i'm thinking i've seen 'the abyss' one too many friggin' times

thanks for the reply anyway, jeff.

like i said before, i actually don't agree that the prevailing themes in 'abyss' and 'avatar' are the same past the shared generic anti-war message and 'the power of love' underpinning most of cam's work - and yes, both stories involve aliens to vastly different degrees - so i still think you and martin s. are way overstating the 'themes are the same' case (esp. frustrating given the fact that neither of you have seen the bloody movie!).

but as is my habit i get a bee in my bonnet that drives me crazy for a day or two and then it flies away and i could care less what anyone else thinks. it's weird to feel so intensely, so obsessive about something one day and not the next, but i guess that's life. here one day, gone the next

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