Some people may find it boring and others may find it great and thrilling. Others may find it laughably bad. There is no right opinion, yet everyone around here still argues as if there is such a thing. Nobody on the internet seems to have the guts to put themselves in their arguments for and against film, television, music, etc... without the personal component all of this discussion that clutters the internet is just visual static.
I myself find the film somewhat slow and the alien subplot mishandled in both versions of the film, but I applaud the film for its technical achievments and for many sequences I found quite thrilling, such as when the crane sinks and starts to plunge down into the trench, taking the Habitat with it, and the submersible fight. Ed Harris's descent into the trench at the end is thouroughly creepy until he gets to the alien ship, then it reminds me a tad too much of the end of Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind and in retrospect has a sad mental association (at least for me) with the Gungan Underwater city in Star Wars The Phantom Menace.
I tend to be more forgiving of films overall despite my haste to find flaws in them or perhaps because of that trait. It just pisses me off when someone says they don't like a movie and someone responds with "You're just not intelligent enough to see how great it is" or some other high minded BS. It gives discerning film lovers and smart people a bad rep. Some people just don't like movies even though a lot of others feel strongly for them. Maybe they're intelligent, maybe they're not. Doesn't matter much, unless their judgment of a movie stems from some crucial misunderstanding of key plot points because they are thick headed, or maybe I could grant that if one starts off finding a film boring in the opening they will tend not to pay as close attention to the plot as the film goes on and thus the film becomes harder to follow.
Anyway, just to add fuel to the fire, I sometimes wonder which fan base in the most insufferable: Joss Whedon fans, Comic Book Fans, AMC Television Fans, or James Cameron fans. Whenever I see my roommate watching Avatar for the 30th time, I tend to go with the last on that list. Sorry about that :)
~Garrett
P.S. I think the James Cameron film I've watched and enjoyed the most will always be True Lies, so I guess I'm a lunkhead who doesn't dig thinking man's science fiction and action.
P.P.S. I used to think Aliens was the best Alien movie growing up, but once I reached my 20's I started to appreciate the sheer technical brilliance the production of the first Alien brought to the screen. Ridley Scott unfortunately peaked far too early in his career as a director with that film and Blade Runner, nothing since has come close in terms of Production Design and execution. Scott seems to have shifted to more of an Executive Producer type who still directs films because that's what the Ridley Scott brand still dictates, I bet it would have benefited all the films involved if Scott had the clout of Spielberg in the early to mid 80's and then just delegate film projects to eager up and comers who would bring their own youthful energy and showbiz hunger to the table. I'm thinking of films like Body of Lies, Robin Hood, American Gangster, Kingdom of Heaven, and possibly even Prometheus. Sometimes I wonder if maybe Ridley Scott died sometime in the late 80's and his brother Tony Scott has been pulling double duty directing under both their names while a hologram of his brother gives interviews every couple years. Any thoughts?
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