Like Nothing You've Seen Before

Last night I saw part of a documentary about the making of Avatar, and one phrase just stuck in my craw. Cameron said a couple of times that he wanted to create something you've never seen before.

That's funny, because in my mind, if that was his goal, it didn't work. (As I sort of covered before.)

The plot, as has been mentioned in many places, is as old as the hills. White guy goes native. Seen it.

And don't get me started on the music.

Aliens. The movie, that is. It's influence is EVERYWHERE (as I mentioned before) in Avatar, from the colonial marines to the loader-like AT-AT things to Sigourney Weaver to the Paul Reiser-type corporate weasel guy to the design of the hardware.

The aliens. As in the life forms on Pandora. The devil dogs seemed not far from the "dog" that Christopher Lloyd's Klingon kept as a pet. The dragon-looking flying things were, well, dragon-looking. The blue people were, well, very much like people except with pointy ears and tails. Never seen pointy ears and tails before. Horses. Hammerhead dinosaurs, not anything like that Hammerhead guy from Star Wars or, I don't know, hammerhead sharks.

Landscape. Floating mountains. Like from an old Yes album cover. Trees. Waterfalls. Wow. How original. Oh but the forest floor lights up. And they have intelligent dandelion puffs. Wow.

Or am I just too jaded?