For all of its simplicities and cliches, Avatar followed the very basic rules of storytelling: It had three defined acts and its character's motivations were clear.

Gravity didn't have a first act and barely had a second act. None of the motivations made any sense. Sandra's character never would have made it to space with all of her psychological issues. NASA isn't going to spend billions on a mission to send a woman with depression issues up into space. Why is she up there anyways? Why her? Why doesn't Clooney's character know much of anything about her? It's like they just met at a diner 10 minutes before the movie started. There is no development on either of them.

At least Avatar told us why Jake was going to Pandora. It told us why humanity went there. It told us why there was a military presence was there. Outside of Michelle Rodriguez's character, everyone's motivations made sense. The story within itself made sense. We had every bit of information we needed as an audience to process what we were seeing and experiencing on screen.

Gravity didn't give that to us... at least not to me. The biggest mistake Gravity made was assuming I would care about Sandra after shite hit the fan when they gave me no reason to care about her until after shite hit the fan. You build up your audience surrogates/protagonists BEFORE they engage in conflict, not after. At least try to make me give a shite about her ultimate fate. When she was barreling towards Earth (after apparently having everything she needed in space within 10 square miles), I really didn't care if she survived or not. At that point, the best and only redeeming part of the movie (the gorgeous visual shots of space and Earth from space) were behind us.

And before someone comes in here with that whole "rebirth" nonsense, please, cut the shite.

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Posted by Freauxzen

Utah

Member since Feb 2006

37413 posts

Posted on 2/25/14 at 1:34 pm to The_Man_of_Steel

quote:
For all of its simplicities and cliches, Avatar followed the very basic rules of storytelling: It had three defined acts and its character's motivations were clear.

Again, completely disagree. It had elements of storytelling, but it's bloated so much that storytelling was undersold and unobtanium was oversold.

quote:
Gravity didn't have a first act and barely had a second act.

The acts were quite clear. The first time the screen goes dark while she's spinning after the destruction. There's your first-second act cut. The Dream Sequence after giving up for death is the second-third act cut. It's quite clear what's going on. That's where the narrative shifts each time.

quote:
None of the motivations made any sense. Sandra's character never would have made it to space with all of her psychological issues. NASA isn't going to spend billions on a mission to send a woman with depression issues up into space.

This isn't a motivation, a suspension of disbelief if you believe that people can't hide some of their inconsistencies, maybe.

quote:
Why is she up there anyways? Why her? Why doesn't Clooney's character know much of anything about her? It's like they just met at a diner 10 minutes before the movie started. There is no development on either of them.

You're asking far too many questions about a movie that is tell you exactly what it is about. The answers are right in front of you. Maybe you just like bloat?

quote:
At least Avatar told us why Jake was going to Pandora.

Because he is drift compatible? If it was "dumb" in Pacific Rim, it was dumb here too. And you have a problem with them sending depressed Sandra Bullock, but you don't with them sending depressed Jake? That makes no sense.

quote:
The story within itself made sense. We had every bit of information we needed as an audience to process what we were seeing and experiencing on screen.

Yeah no. But this is not a discussion about Avatar. Where Avatar is bloated story telling Gravity is all about efficiency. You really can't compare the two, honestly.

quote:
Gravity didn't give that to us... at least not to me.

Because you're focused on the wrong things. You're focused on the things the movie isn't telling you to focus on.

quote:
The biggest mistake Gravity made was assuming I would care about Sandra after shite hit the fan when they gave me no reason to care about her until after shite hit the fan.

Again, this is being unfair to Gravity. This can be said for ANY movie if you really want to know their life story before the movie starts. This is never going to be true. You're going to know:

1) Some of their CURRENT motivations, NOT their life goals
2) Who they are
3) Where they come from
4) What's going on

Gravity did just that.

quote:
You build up your audience surrogates/protagonists BEFORE they engage in conflict, not after.

No. You do these things simultaneously. Your investment increases as you learn more about that character. Now whether or not Sandra did this, is debatable, and probably personal.

quote:
When she was barreling towards Earth (after apparently having everything she needed in space within 10 square miles), I really didn't care if she survived or not. At that point, the best and only redeeming part of the movie (the gorgeous visual shots of space and Earth from space) were behind us.

Let's go back to this:

quote:
Gravity didn't give that to us... at least not to me.

You may not have connected with the film. Or Sandra Bullock, or her motivations. Or her goals.

But "to me," is important. You can dislike a film's emotions, but if you separate your personal outlook and connection from an evaluation of a film based on its own merits, maybe you can better understand why that happens. And maybe you can appreciate film whether or not you "connect" with it.