@Outerspec:
Oh, did it look artificial? That tends to happen when you create an entire world out of CGI. Yeah, I thought they did a pretty great job. The bugs from District 9 were put in a real world, our world, and blended in as much as possible to make them look more realistic and distract from their CGI. They did a much better job than other movies who have tried likewise and, yes, their design was done well too but imagine putting them an entire world composed of their CGI, like back on their home planet or something. Things would look a lot different. It wouldn't look as detailed as Avatar's world and going off of the creatures' designs, a little bleak, and I'm pretty sure the creatures would not have looked so real looking in comparison.
The 2 movies tried 2 different settings. One with CGI creatures in the real world and the other a bunch of real people in a CGI world. You reacted better to one than the other. Understandable, but not condemning of how good Avatar looked.
It's not simply that it was all CGI, it didn't…look right. It made no sense (there were floating mountains that was never explained, the animals that were just a random mishmash of animals with no consideration of what they would look like in that environment) and it didn't feel organic. I've seen 100% CGI worlds that mesmerize me with their beauty, Guardians of the Galaxy for example was full of different worlds and I bought each one because they all had a story and were visually unique and not generic jungle and they made sense in how they operated. Pandora never felt like a world to me, just a computer screensaver. It was just pretty imagery, it didn't feel like a real world.
@Outerspec:
If it made you feel a sense of wonder like you're flying through the air on an alien planet, I don't know, does that count as a little impactful? Have you ever see How to Train Your Dragon? 1 or 2? If you did it's hard to forget the flying scenes in those movies. That sense of wonder and discovery as the main character and his dragon build their bond of friendship and trust with one another and the audience gets to experience that buildup with the simple mechanism of flight. It might be a simple mechanism but it can used very well to convey a nice narrative like being used as a bonding moment of trust and friendship. Exactly like it was done in Avatar. Sorry, but whether you remember it or not you don't get to choose what is iconic or not.
The flying scenes in How to Train your dragon were way better and emotionally compelling. Setting aside you felt more for a connection with the characters, it was more visually appealing and kinetic and I'm not even going to lie, I don't remember the dragon scene in Avatar but I remember the one in How to Train your Dragon and I saw that movie around the same time!
Also you're right I don't get to choose what's iconic, the majority does. The power of a shot is based on a lot of technical factors but a good litmus test is to see how many people remember it. So tell me, if you made a poll, how many people do you think would recall this dragon scene? How much did it leave an impact on people that it stuck on their minds? Compare that to how many people would recall scenes from Fury Road? But that's not fair, that movie only came out last year. Okay, what came out in that time period of late 2000s? Toy Story 3? Who doesn't remember the toys holding hands as they're going to be incinerated? Dark Knight? Who doesn't remember Heath Ledger's slow clap or Batman standing in the ruins of an explosion, you know which scene I'm talking about, it's the one you remember. And that's not even mentioning old movies with shots that are so iconic that they still survive in pop culture today. Who doesn't remember the iconic Star Wars opening? Who doesn't remember the infinite mirror shot in Citizen Kane? These are things that stick in culture, no one is going to remember a single shot from Avatar, how many of those hundreds of millions of people who bought a ticket for that movie can tell you a single scene or piece of dialogue that they remember, all they can give you is a vague impression of, well it was pretty!
Also, it's kinda telling that your example of an iconic scene from Avatar was superficial tourism opposed to a scene that had emotional impact like when the tree fell down (I only remember that scene because of how I was getting angry at the hamfisted symbolism of it).
@Outerspec:
Most if not every blockbuster movie is engineered to get maximum profits, dude. What I'm not understanding is how you're ignoring that people actually liked it because they came away with a sense of wonder and awe at the visual experience. Perhaps that was also a factor in it making a lot of money. Yeah, it's obvious you didn't like the movie and you're unwilling to admit people liked it for much more than its easily digestible story and "pretty" (understatement) graphics. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find a lot of people who liked it for its story. Lol, who is pushing the "story of Avatar"? Again, it wasn't about the story but visuals for Avatar. I doubt the director even gave much care about the story compared to how it looked. To you it might have just been a bunch of plebes who flocked to the theaters to see something popular but in my experience just because a movie is "popular" it doesn't make it reach the numbers Avatar reached. There is something that you're missing. That didn't affect you like it did others. There's nothing wrong with that but it's too bad you didn't get to enjoy it.
Every movie is made for profits but Avatar more than mot movies reeks of cold, calculated marketing and focus groups. Everything from the designs of the cat people with big eyes and lips for maximum appeal to the cookie cutter plot with obvious bad guys and good guys to the themes of Indians vs Cowboys was tailor-made for minimum thought and maximum draw. Setting story aside, visually Avatar is NOT a good movie. It looks pretty but it doesn't really say anything with its visuals.
Again, I bring up Mad Max: Fury Road because while the movie was gorgeous, it told so much with just its visuals, it was a masterpiece of giving the maximum of the world with the minimum amount of plot and characters. Let's give another example, Lost in Translation, a movie all about the melanchonly of two people as they wander around Japan. I personally found that movie boring, I admit it, it didn't do much for me but I still appreciate the talent and craft that went into it, I do not recognize any of that craft in Avatar. Good visuals isn't just about being pretty to look at, every shot, every frame should serve a purpose, the director tells the story with how the camera is angled and moved and what he chooses to show and not show. That's the difference between a good visual movie that you're talking about and Avatar. Because for all the CGI Cameron farted out, he did not present it in a visually interesting or appealing way. Anyone can make a bunch of good looking CGI if you gave them the time and money but it takes talent and work to present it to us in interesting ways. A good movie should challenge us with its visuals not wave it in our face and not do anything with it.
So yes, for me the film fails on both a visual as well as narrative level because good visuals are more than how immaculate and pristine your CGI is. It needs to give back something to the person watching it, something a little more challenging than "Ah man, I sure would like to vacation there!"
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