Did anyone else not like "The Hurt Locker"?

Discussion in 'Art & Culture' started by Nasor, Mar 8, 2010.

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  1. Cowboy

    Cowboy My Aim Is True Valued Senior Member

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    This is probably very true.
     
    Cowboy, Mar 10, 2010
    #41

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  3. dsdsds

    dsdsds Valued Senior Member

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    You know that the hero was AMERICAN right? The Navi would say "how typically arrogant, condescending, and RACIST of these Americans - portraying that an American could become leader of our race and lead us to victory".
     
    dsdsds, Mar 10, 2010
    #42

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  5. Fraggle Rocker

    Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    It only made that point about our political, military and corporate leaders. It was, after all, a military expedition and soldiers are brainwashed into doing whatever they're told by their leaders, Nuremberg be damned. Despite that, several of the military personnel rebelled against their officers and risked their lives to defend the Na'vi--in addition to the hero, who was also military. That was an important part of the story and I guess you missed it.

    I guarantee that in the sequel the next ship to visit Pandora will carry delegates from Greenpeace and the Sierra Club.

    Look at the acrimonious conflict in the USA right now between the political and corporate leaders who fit your stereotype and their gun-totin', flag-wavin,' Jesus-lovin' supporters, and the rest of us who oppose deforestation, whaling, Arctic drilling and killing Muslims for petroleum.
    That's a nice paradigm but it's not the one that anyone uses. If you look in the "Fantasy" and "Science Fiction" sections in the bookstore, the video store, Amazon.com or anywhere else, you'll see the paradigm I described. No matter how much magic a story has, if it also has science then it goes on the science fiction rack.

    Alan Dean Foster's acclaimed novel Midworld is almost entirely about magic, but since it's set on a world that was colonized by spacefaring humans and the characters are their descendants, it's in the "Science Fiction" section.

    Ditto for Dune.
    "Star Trek" is about politics, history and sociology. Galactic civilizations just give them a metaphorical milieu in which to set their stories, and the technology is just there for fun.
    You need to talk to a Jungian about that. They all love "Star Wars." "The force" is a metaphor for the various components of our personality (or "spirits") that vie for dominance. The "dark side" is what Jung calls our "shadow," where the things we repress fester and grow until one day they erupt and we behave out of character, often with disastrous results.

    This is "magic" only to people who are so out of touch with themselves, or who repress so much of who they are for various reasons, that when this eruption occurs they are taken completely by surprise.
     
    Fraggle Rocker, Mar 10, 2010
    #43

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  7. Cowboy

    Cowboy My Aim Is True Valued Senior Member

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    Actually, Sam Worthington is an Aussie.

    Anyway, most of the bad guys seemed to be Americans, too.
     
    Cowboy, Mar 11, 2010
    #44
  8. superstring01

    superstring01 Moderator

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    I finally watched the movie last night. It was horrible. Boring. Lame. Slow. Stupid.

    ~String
     
    superstring01, Mar 12, 2010
    #45
  9. Nasor

    Nasor Valued Senior Member

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    Sadly, the next ship to visit Pandora will probably arrive with weapons for incinerating large swaths of the surface from orbit without damaging the valuable ore beneath the ground. At least, that would be the logical conclusion based on what we saw in the movie.
     
    Nasor, Mar 12, 2010
    #46
  10. Fraggle Rocker

    Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    There are plenty of immigrants in the U.S. military. There was a time when that moved you to the front of the line for citizenship. But I think his character was supposed to be American. He had that flat generic accent that Brits and Aussies use when they play Americans. It doesn't quite sound genuinely American but it's so close that you stop noticing it immediately. At least they don't all sound like hillbillies the way they used to, when that was the only American accent they could master!
    Sorry you didn't enjoy it. Do you generally not appreciate fantasy and sci-fi films? They're not intended to have the same kind of literary quality as print media. Sci-fi and fantasy are all about "sense of wonder." In print that's conveyed in words, but on film it's done visually. I'm sure half the people who walked out of that theater with you remembered only the visuals and couldn't explain the story.
    It will be a pretty ho-hum sequel if that's the way they do it. But I also expected more from the Star Wars sequels and I was ho-hummed to death by them. So anything is possible. Let's hope for the best.

    Or at least something like "The Whale Wars." In space. In 3-D.

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    Fraggle Rocker, Mar 12, 2010
    #47
  11. Nasor

    Nasor Valued Senior Member

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    Well, I doubt they would actually do that, simply because it would be a short downer of a movie. But it is the logical conclusion. When I watch Avatar I enjoyed it quite a bit, but at the end when the humans were being expelled from the planet and the audience was supposed to be happy, I couldn't help but think "You still don't have any real weapons. They're just going to come back and kick your ass, probably before they even land..."
     
    Nasor, Mar 12, 2010
    #48
  12. Mrs.Lucysnow

    Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

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    Its not the best film but I since the academy awards are largely political its safe to say it won because the director was a woman and it was time to award women directors.

    The film was okay but they botched a lot of the technical details concerning EOD's so I know more than a few deminers who laughed their asses off during the film.
     
    Mrs.Lucysnow, Mar 15, 2010
    #49
  13. deicider

    deicider got omnicidead Registered Senior Member

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    Seen THL twice,both before the oscars.
    Well,obviously when people see guns and desert they expect rambo action and the hero doing thumbs up to his robot pet or smth,thats proly why most people were disappointed.
    Avatar fascinated me,it was a "wow" but it didn't touched me as deep THL did.
    Also since a woman made a descent movie(which happened to be Camerons ex-wife ,ironically )it was a good chance to be "equal".
     
    deicider, Mar 15, 2010
    #50
  14. w1z4rd

    w1z4rd Valued Senior Member

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    After this, I dont hold the Oscars is much esteem.
     
    w1z4rd, Mar 15, 2010
    #51
  15. superstring01

    superstring01 Moderator

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    12,110
    You mean, after the "English Patient" fiasco, you still did?

    ~String
     
    superstring01, Mar 15, 2010
    #52
  16. BenTheMan

    BenTheMan Dr. of Physics, Prof. of Love Valued Senior Member

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    8,967
    Ok let's get one thing straight:

    The only reason that Avatar was worth seeing was the visual effects. The writing was thin (cf, the love scene in the garden between the male and female lead), and the plot was worn out (cf Fern Gully, Dances With Wolves, ...). The only thing that was really new were the special effects.

    Hurt Locker, I thought, was very good, but wouldn't have won any awards if Hollywood wasn't full of liberals. I thought the movie was great, but I also couldn't imagine it being best picture. I can see the Hollywood elite patting themselves on the backs, saying ``We support the troops, this proves it!''.

    It's the same reason Precious was considered at all: in a town full of fake people, seeing a movie with a fat black girl as the lead somehow makes shallow, rich, white people feel better.
     
    BenTheMan, Mar 15, 2010
    #53
  17. Nasor

    Nasor Valued Senior Member

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    Pretentious bullshit.

    The problem with The Hurt Locker isn't that it wasn't an action movie. The problem is that it lacks a coherent story, has shallow characters, and uses all sorts of laughably silly set-piece sequences that don't make any sense.
     
    Nasor, Mar 15, 2010
    #54
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