Watched
Avatar earlier today and from an artistic standpoint, I was impressed with the visuals. The rendering was quite nice, though there were some problems with the bump-mapping on some of the Navi, particularly Grace. The mountains and the sky backdrops were pretty, the usage of sea life for the fauna was pretty creative, as sea life can certainly be alien. I won't comment on the character movement as mo-cap was used, but the movement on some of the other critters was nicely-done, like the jellyfish-seed-things. One of the creatures, particularly the lizard that would spin around in a Da Vinci-esque helicopter motion, seemed a bit ridiculous, but I could BS something for that being a sort of defensive display or some such, and not a method of movement, as it seemed counter-productive to spin yourself dizzy. I liked the bioluminescence, it was pretty. Overall, the movie was very pretty.
The plot, though... I feel there could have been more done with it, as opposed to using what seemed like a combination of
Fern Gully,
Dances With Wolves, and
Braveheart. Not to say that such storylines are bad, mind you. I mean, the formula worked for years and there have been many a compelling movie with what essentially amounts to the same plot, but there could have been more done with it. Perhaps taken another direction, as I found myself predicting some scenes. Though, it did leave me wondering more about the biology and physiology of the life forms. Particularly the evolutionary patterns so that each and every organism had a complex neural net to interface with.
Though, since I'm on the science aspect... The floating mountains. Gravity would need to be very, very light for that to work, to the point that it would be doubtful that life could be sustained on that moon. Unless there were some powerful magnetic and tidal forces at work from the moon's gas giant. Though, it still seemed a tad implausible. Very pretty visuals, though. With the plantlife growing, and the erosion from wind, rain, and water, those mountains, particularly the complex rock bridges strung together by roots, would degrade. The roots would eat away at the rock and break it apart. Tidal forces can do quite a bit of damage, even the tidal pull from our own, smaller, more distant moon. The tidal forces from how nearby that gas giant is would wreak some havoc.
Overall, I enjoyed the movie. I liked it as it was visually engaging. Even if the Navi looked suspiciously like the
Nelvaanians that appeared in
Clone Wars Chapter 23 in 05.