Saw it today in 3D. Hehe, Dances with Wolves redone in blue makeup and 3D is about right!
The 3D was well done. I noticed that the 3D was almost exclusively limited to the background stuff - the people remained neutral (you could look at the people with your glasses off and they'd look normal). It also tended to pick 3-4 layers and just leave stuff on that layer, rather than try and make stuff truly 3D. It worked quite well with live-action. Overall, the 3D was quite subtle. I barely even noticed the movie was 3d after about half-way. I would have been just as happy seeing a 2D version of the film.
The CGI = mission accomplished. After the initial 'meet n greet' session of 30 minutes or so, I was totally absorbed into the world. My mind fully believed everything I saw was real for the next 2 hours and change. That was pretty neat!
The 'white guilt' aspect of the story was in full tilt, and yes it pissed me off. Maybe that was Cameron's plan to better evoke an emotional response in the viewer, which would better attach you to the na'vi. If so, then mission accomplished Cameron. This was EARTH folk vs. Pandora, not selfish, evil white man vs. Pandora. In reality, white people will be a minority by 2150 something. It truly did irritate me that every single person of authority was a smart assed knowitall white man. If they're gonna steal the zoom/focus camera work from Firefly/Serenity, they might as well steal the aspect that eastern and western cultures will fuse.
It's a moot point though, because this irritation faded from memory and I enjoyed the last 2 hours of the film. It would have made a better film if he would have conveyed Earth's urgency and necessity for the unobtanium. It would have been the classic desperate culture vs. desperate culture story. If the RDA would have went home empty handed, human civilization would die...yeah, that would have made it a much better movie. It would have added a whole new emotional layer to the film, while allowing all of the human characters to act EXACTLY the same, word for word. They would simply be seen as tragic rather than selfish, arrogant ---punks---.
Final summary: It's a highly enjoyable, yet highly forgettable film. 4 out of 5 stars
Random thoughts:
-Is it wrong that I found Sully's Na'vi love interested oddly attractive?
-My wife was impressed with Sigourney Weavers 'nude scene'. She wondered if they used CG to touch her up...
- I found 3 glaring editing mistakes that bothered me: I'll switch to spoiler mode though.
1. Jake's woman had her hair un-braided for their love making scene. It was still down when they ran to home tree, and jake spilled the beans and collapsed. When he came back a short time later, her hair was perfectly braided again.
2. The Na'vi shot a boat load of arrows at the Colonels ship and scratched the hell out of the glass. When Colonel mobilized for the final battle, the glass was minty fresh again. My wife says it wasn't scratches, but just the poison from their arrow tips. I call BS on that - they were scratches. It's also the same ship both times, so that is out.
3. At the very end, the nerdy avatar controller dude had his avatar killed. He is shown standing next to the doc with a mask and gun while shipping the humans off. Immediately after this scene, there is an avatar that looks exactly like nerdy guys avatar also herding humans out. Sure, maybe it was another of the Avatars doing this, but I tend to think it is an editing mistake.My wife and I both noticed this, and she never EVER catches these things. If only I noticed it, I wouldn't have said anything.
I simply can't stand it when I notice things like this in a movie. Surely things like this shouldn't happen when a movie is in production for 12 years and they spend that kind of money...