Oh, Happy Harry. You are awesome.
I had a crappy day, and contrary to the usual way-too-personal nature of blogs, I’m not going to go on about that. Instead, I’m going to go on about the ‘background music’ of my crap day, because I’ve kept silent for far too long about it, and I think it’s high time the Internet knew my feelings on the matter.
I have never been so sick of a movie I haven’t seen as Avatar.
You know how sometimes you hear about a game, or a movie, or 75% bacon based fast food sandwich so much that the hype becomes anti-hype? All subsequent mentions just become greasy dollops of nauseating bacon fat and mayonnaise and you start getting more and more irritated at the idea of subjecting yourself to that Triple Baconator of a film. Well, that’s basically what happened to me. It began when the teaser trailers were coming out and people kept telling me how stoked they were that the movie had released a new trailer that was 14 seconds longer than the teaser trailer and revealed nothing new or interesting. Then came the “You gotta go see it- it has robots!” bunch. I may have caved and seen Revenge of the Fallen on video, but robots aren’t the only thing it takes to make me like something, nor do I really consider it a seal of quality. It doesn’t make the overall plot sound less like another version of the white-guy-is-taken-in-by-and-becomes-the-savior-of-some-spiritually-aware-locals-then-defeats-the-other-evil-white-guys, as seen in Pocahontas, Ferngully, the Last Samurai, Dances with Wolves, et al. Not exactly a genre I’m into, and creepy blue CG cat people don’t freshen it up enough for me. And it doesn’t really help pique my interest any more to hear about how AWESOME and breathtaking it is in IMAX 3-D and that’s the way it’s meant to be seen and oh dear lord the spectacle of it all is making my pants tighten..! As much as I appreciate impressive CG, special effects technology, and stuff like that, it’s not really much of a substitute for… content. And from what I’ve heard, in spoiler-filled movie reviews, accounts both snarky AND glowing, there’s just nothing there that makes me wanna dash out to the store and buy blue cupcakes and Mountain Dew and AVATAR(tm) photo cakes and so on.
tl;dr- my workplace has a massive Avatar shrine set up featuring Avatar themed snacks, action figures, a looping copy of the DVD, a creepy-as-fuck N’a’a’a’v’i’ mannequin (with flat yellow eyes since they didn’t bother painting pupils or irises in… guwaahhh), and of course, rows and rows of the movie on Blu-Ray and vanilla DVD.
Maybe I wouldn’t care so much if it hadn’t been hyped up the ass and had wayyy too many people I know play the “It has robots, therefore he MUST like it!” card trying to sell me on a blue spraypainted version of Save the Rainforest From Whitey.
IN SPAAAAAACE.
I don’t care if the sequel has aqua robots since it’s apparently supposed to take place in the ocean, either.
This is kind of the opposite of a movie review, isn’t it? A virulent refusal to watch something based on hearsay? Tune in next time on 3/2 when someone will more than likely have forced me to watch it at gunpoint!
