"Neeum Zawan" <m.n### [at] ieeeorg> wrote in message 
news:4b58ecf0@news.povray.org...
> On 01/13/10 22:11, Darren New wrote:
>> Pretty but cliche.
>
> Agreed. Not an ounce of originality in the story.
>

I've always been a big fan of the "seven basic plots" idea. I note, for the 
record, that this is neither an absolute nor an accepted theory in all 
circles, but I think the concept has merit.

Also, a film is not just a story, although I think a compelling story is 
important. This one has the classic 
"boy-meets-girl-boy-loses-girl-boy-does-something-heroic-boy-gets-girl", 
which is one of my favorites. But, to each his own.

A film is, or should be, a kind of art that is a balancing act. Art is a 
communication method; it communicates emotions the way that words 
communicate ideas. The balancing act comes in unifying the emotional message 
from the hundreds (in this case, close to 3,000 according to the best 
estimates I could find) people.

To me, a compelling story is not just one that's interesting, it makes me 
wonder, "what happens next?" My favorite novels always leave me wanting to 
know more about the lives of the characters. That certainly happened for me 
with this film.

As an aside, I must say that I'm enjoying the fact that, in a space occupied 
by so many technical people as in this group, that so much of the discussion 
of this film has been focused on the story and the visual look of the film. 
There is some amazingly odd and hard to validate science going on in this 
movie. Most of the time, when that happens in a movie (Armaggedon, anyone?) 
I find the film unwatchable. I was so caught up in Avatar that it didn't 
even register with me until later, and even then, I shrugged it off with a 
"who cares, it was great" attitude. :-)

--
Jack

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