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[AngelsEmbrace]

It's Dances with Wolves set inside a series of Roger Dean paintings, most notably:
http://www.rogerdean.com/upclose/floatingislands.htm
http://www.rogerdean.com/upclose/arches.htm
http://www.rogerdean.com/upclose/dragonsgarden.htm

...with a Ferngully type of "the planet is alive!" (including the giant bulldozer taking down a magic tree) theme thrown in for good luck, as well as a bad case of Free Willy Syndrome ^TM.

[Faerydae]

I loved it! Saw it in 3D on Thursday and then 2D on Friday.

[Foxeye]

Faerydae, would you say it's worth going to the trouble of seeing in 3D?  (All the 3d theaters around here are a big hassle to find parking at, and we don't even enjoy theaters to begin with.)

I'm looking forward to it. And the good thing about it having a very very predictable plot is that I don't have to worry that anyone will spoil it for me. ^_^  I'm mostly interested in it because I hear parts of it feel a lot like a sci-fi version of the Planet Earth series. 

[Faerydae]

I hated the 3d version - whatever wasn't in your face looked blurry or fuzzy around the images and it was hard to focus on stuff. And it hurtededed my eyes.

But it was gorgeous!

[Mirr]

Yeah, sadly seems some people can experience discomfort with the 3D version, my friend said she had no problems whereas others in her family had, iirc :/ This was my first 3D movie though, and aside from the occasional odd feeling, I thought it was very cool (despite fuzzyness) and indeedy very gorgeous (I've been dreaming about having blue skin myself for aaaages, biased? hell yes!)

Said friend also did talk of that Earth 2 series after she had seen Avatar. I shall have to try and see all of that series, as I think I just saw a few eps many many moons ago.

[Foxeye]

Because Iri and I never go to the movie theater without putting on our serious business faces and doing internet research of all the local theaters, I have now learned that there are four kinds of 3d technology: Imax, Real 3D, Dolby 3D, and "liemax".  Imax (which theoretically is only the real-deal if it's a 7-story screen, otherwise you have a liemax) gives you the "holy sh*t!" factor, but is prone to causing dizziness and headaches.

Real 3D is decent, and easy-ish to find. Better than Imax if 3d makes you dizzy.

Dolby 3D is best if you don't care about the wow-factor, but want better picture quality. In addition to being less dizzy-making, like Real 3D, it supposedly has less ghosting/blurring than Imax, and better contrast ratio than Real 3D.  Of course, this is all second-hand thanks to google, but it's enough that we have taken the time to find a theater with Dolby 3D, which hopefully we can visit this weekend. I'll report back how it goes.

[AngelsEmbrace]

Just got out of taking my lads to see it.  I usually see war movies first to make sure it's not too intense.

The second time around it's not as impressive as the first, and the one-sidedness of the story comes through pretty hard when one isn't distracted by the imagery.  The exec guy's snarky comment about shareholders liking poor returns less than genocide is ridiculous, considering we have the history of WW II (Nazis collaborators, etc.) to look back on.  Of course not all Nazi collaborators are universally reviled, so I suppose the existence of a George Soros in 2154 is not out of the question.

Bizarrely, the one, simple explanation of "the planet is a living organism on its own, and the fauna & flora are part of it" is never spoken outright even though it would encapsulate the heroes' argument to the villains.  No... it's just greedy corporations (like 20th Century Fox?) raping "the natural world."  The irony is calculating the sheer volume of resources and technical training which were expended to make, distribute and promote this film [aka Free Willy Syndrome].

The thing that bugs me the most is that the value of "Unobtanium" is never established beyond a monetary figure--probably because it would explain why so much energy and resources are being dedicated to its acquisition and paint the humans in a more sympathetic light.  Additionally, with communications being so advanced it's difficult to accept that human tree-huggers aren't better represented in this impending invasion of the pristine "natural world" scenario.  And the end of the film when the "aliens" are sent back to their dying world is, all things considered, a greater act of genocide than peaceful (if tense) co-existence.

The Roger Dean style set designs (why isn't the great man credited?) are still beautiful.  It'd just be a lot nicer if the story weren't so weak.

[dreamweaver]

The story was great. Though I have seen it before in Dancing With Wolves and Fern Gully and various other movies, books, TV shows, etc. I went to see the visuals mostly. I love that all of the culture and beliefs that "the people" held so greatly to their hearts shines through. You see it in the way they hold eachother, their children, themselves and you hear it in their language and the discriptions. I love that it took the Jarhead the trained scientist to explain the phrase "I see you" as not I can see you there but I see into your soul, I see the true you.

Maybe you don't like it because that is what Elfqueat should be but won't because I don't think the studio will put up the money to put Elfquest in the hands of WETA