this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2026
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For me if I had to pick a good contender it would be the UK version of The Office.

I know many tend to debate how Ricky Gervais really fell off and how he repugnantly acts like a whiny centrist edgelord but me personally IMO I actually don't think he was ever funny not even a little.

His big break through television was just so painful to sit through it's so charismatically boring the characters are completely generic at best (notably Tim) or straight up insufferably unlikable at worst (especially the protagonist David FUCKING Brent) and most importantly the humour is just embarrassing.

Always seemed like The Thick Of It but without the nuisance tongue in cheek and charming satire.

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[–] LadyButterfly@reddthat.com 8 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Utter snoozefest I didn't get the hype at all

[–] SethranKada@lemmy.ca 3 points 15 hours ago

The plot sucks and the characters are forgettable, but that's not the point. The point is the graphics, the locations, the crazy wildlife and eywa. The neural queues and the floating islands. Its a masterclass in world building, and has been an endless source of inspiration.

[–] LemmyFeed@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I lost all respect for the movie and the entire franchise after hearing "unobtainium" as the name of the super rare space mineral. Nearly walked out of the theater.

[–] _stranger_@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

I can't remember if they ever refer to it as anything else in that movie but I actually appreciated this scene in the first movie for two reasons:

Info dumps irritate me in sci fi. He's like the main guy in charge talking to one of his lead scientists. They both absolutely fucking know why they're there. They know what it's called and what it's for. He's spelling it out for our benefit without breaking in-world character. If, in-world, someone started pedantically outlining what the rocks were for to their lead scientists, it would be the equivalent of calling them an idiot. Calling it "unobtainium" is like saying "we've had this argument before, I remember everything you said last time, you know everything I'm about to tell you, and nothing you or I do will change what's happening because you cant get it anywhere else and oh yeah it's worth a fuck load of money".

I can't remember if they later retcon that into being the actual name, but in that moment, it didn't sound like the actual name, it sounded like slang being used informally during a semi heated discussion.

[–] tal@lemmy.today 6 points 1 day ago (3 children)

When did you watch it? When it came out, it was technically impressive for the computer-generated graphics, which included a lot of highly-detailed and expansive "organic" stuff like forests.

Here's some quotes from the Roger Ebert review from the time:

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/avatar-2009

Like “Star Wars” and “LOTR,” “Avatar” employs a new generation of special effects. Cameron said it would, and many doubted him. It does. Pandora is very largely CGI. The Na’vi are embodied through motion capture techniques, convincingly. They look like specific, persuasive individuals, yet sidestep the eerie Uncanny Valley effect. And Cameron and his artists succeed at the difficult challenge of making Neytiri a blue-skinned giantess with golden eyes and a long, supple tail, and yet–I’ll be damned. Sexy.

Cameron promised he’d unveil the next generation of 3-D in “Avatar.” I’m a notorious skeptic about this process, a needless distraction from the perfect realism of movies in 2-D. Cameron’s iteration is the best I’ve seen — and more importantly, one of the most carefully-employed. The film never uses 3-D simply because it has it, and doesn’t promiscuously violate the fourth wall.

I mean, I remember being underwhelmed after I went to watch Avatar with a friend who was deeply impressed, but it did show off a lot of render capability for the time. I'd call it more impressive as a tech demo.

[–] novibe@lemmy.ml 3 points 13 hours ago

It’s way beyond a tech demo. Each Avatar movie invented dozens of new techniques. They actually film using cameras. They do a CGI movie with cameras, filming real actors acting. And they become huge blue aliens, while being filmed on a camera. It’s truly insane. I don’t like the movies themselves, but the BTS for them is crazy.

[–] Lumisal@lemmy.world 2 points 13 hours ago

Didn't expect this is how I found out Roger Ebert was a furry

[–] Damage@feddit.it 3 points 1 day ago

I watched it in 3D too and was blown away