Sealing the Pact

My second article for Dungeons and Dragons Insider was released today! I am very excited and proud of my work here-- hopefully the 5 new monsters are released soon.

Jeff's Review of Avatar

As if you weren't sick of hearing about this movie from TV, the radio, or annoying friends-- here are a few of my thoughts to cut through the raves and publicity. Since I don't like giving my opinions of movies to others lest it form their impression/expectations prior to them seeing them, I'll divide my review in to two sections.

READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN: Avatar is a lush, ambitious, creative action adventure with an entertaining-- though wholly unoriginal-- plot. B+

READ AFTER HAVING SEEN:

-- the good: The success of Avatar's visuals is a no-brainer-- it's the best use of CG ever, especialy given that almost ALL of the film is computer generated. The backgrounds and characters are vibrant and compelling. The pacing is quite good, considering the length of the film, and although there are only a handful of action sequences the movie never drags. That being said, the film isn't especially exciting, just fun to look at.

-- the bad: The characters are very one-dimensional, and the plot is the same as every "going native" story ever made. There isn't anyone especially likable, and even the protagonist is only vaguely defined. From a storytelling and character standpoint, Avatar is essentually a children's film, and is very predictable. For example, I would of had Jake be the first dragon rider-- rather than have him fit into some prophetic role already established by the Navi. This would have made his bravery more genuine, and the Navi's respect more earned.

-- the ugly: There are many good ideas here which were poorly utilized. The first being the story's emphasis on "going native" rather than on the numerous sci-fi elements which could have been explored. The most compelling is the use of a literal second body which the protagonist uses to propel the story. The connection between the avatar and our own "digital personas" couldn't be clearer, but the film doesn't even acknowledge this. Add to this the fact that the main character is disabled, and it becomes very disappointing that this issue wasn't explored more. Jake's inner conflict regarding his actual body and his avatar is hardly discussed-- what a missed opportunity!

Next, is the mystic nature of the aliens-- which in my opinion destroyed the credibility of the film. Sigourney Weaver's character posits the beginnings of a biological (and therefore evolutionary) explination for the planet's interconnected nature... but this is largely ignored so that the Navi can be made holistic, sympathetic characters compared to the comically capitalist humans. This feels like a story-telling concession, made to play up to common culture's inklings that anything "spiritual" is somehow better, and the guilt we all have regarding the general destruction of our own planet. Because of this, all of the characters in the film are really charicatures to set up straw-men for us to projet hatred of ourselves and to elevate an idealized society, without sayig anything compelling to ecourage change. This is what sci-fi is suppossed to be all about; thus, an opportunity to delve into the wonder and uniqueness of what's really happening in this alien world is lost.

Blog Beginnings

Hi everyone. Since more and more it seems like everyone lives over mountains, under mountains, or between mountains, we've decided to create this blog as a means to better share with you what's going on in our lives. We'll put up pictures, plans, art, and various rants/raves (something the internet is dangerously lacking), and hope you participate by adding comments, postings, etc.

Right now, Mariah and I just beat the Xbox game "Borderlands". It was kind of hokey, but still fun. I played a sniper character, so blew the heads off of at least a million bad guys, while Mariah used fire/electricity to melt faces and distintigrate enemies-- that's what I call quality time!

Here's a winter picture to hold you over until something more interesting comes up.