I went to a movie, in a theater for the first time in about 5 years last night. We saw Avatar. I wont go into a critique of the movie at this point, but I wanted to point out to the ENTS that one of the lead characters in the movie played by Sigourney Weaver is a scientist...her character is not well-developed, but she is focused on botany. One of her main discoveries is root-to-root communication among plants (a main character in a 1/2 billion dollar movie a Rhizosphere biologist!?!?) There are a lot of interestingly imagined plants. The (floating, jellyfish like) seeds of a particular tree play a major role, and two of the central settings in the movie are trees. Its sci-fi with a lot of fighting and explosions and general loudness, and I am not particularly recommending the movie, but I thought you might be interested...
ENTS I also saw the movie last night and would highly recommend it! The plot is not compelling and if any of you have seen Princess Mananoke (a beautiful eco-anime), the story line is basically the same. The green message in this movie is very strong but what was interesting was the fact that those little3 twirling seed pods looked exactly like marine animals as did the 'touch me not' luminescent red flowers. Cameron, the director, has a deep nature affinity - both land and sea - and the magical world he created in this movie has elements of both (gills on the winged horse creatures, floating mountains etc.). I saw it in 3-D and IMAX and it was a visual feast. Chris
________________________________ From: Ryan McEwan <the.ts...@gmail.com> To: entstrees@googlegroups.com Sent: Fri, January 1, 2010 3:19:29 PM Subject: [ENTS] the botany of Avatar
ENTS:
I went to a movie, in a theater for the first time in about 5 years last night. We saw Avatar. I wont go into a critique of the movie at this point, but I wanted to point out to the ENTS that one of the lead characters in the movie played by Sigourney Weaver is a scientist...her character is not well-developed, but she is focused on botany. One of her main discoveries is root-to-root communication among plants (a main character in a 1/2 billion dollar movie a Rhizosphere biologist!?!?) There are a lot of interestingly imagined plants. The (floating, jellyfish like) seeds of a particular tree play a major role, and two of the central settings in the movie are trees. Its sci-fi with a lot of fighting and explosions and general loudness, and I am not particularly recommending the movie, but I thought you might be interested...
Visually the movie is very pretty. The plot is so pathetic, derivative, with such exaggerated stereotyped characters I am ashamed that people consider this to be a science fiction movie. There is some much failed potential in the movie that it is an embarrassment to the genre.
IMHO, you are the man on ScFi. If you say Avatar's plot sucks, I believe it. The question in my mind is whether I would OD on noise and constant, frantic action. Is it one unending series if explosions, albeit with spectacular effects?
----- Original Message ----- From: "Edward Frank" <edfr...@comcast.net> To: entstrees@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, January 1, 2010 3:48:29 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: Re: [ENTS] the botany of Avatar
People,
Visually the movie is very pretty. The plot is so pathetic, derivative, with such exaggerated stereotyped characters I am ashamed that people consider this to be a science fiction movie. There is some much failed potential in the movie that it is an embarrassment to the genre.
The action is not overwhelming with a reasonable amount of explosions. The main point of the movie seems to be to show off the graphics, and they are purty.... In addition to the poor plot the man character is unsympathetic, not memorable, and I could care less about his ultimate fate. The other characters are simply colorful cardboard.
