I figured I'd be bothered by the uninspired dialogue. I'd also heard the acting was crummy. (Since really, why should the words characters say or the way they say them be of any real importance?) But I didn't think James Cameron would insult me as a golfer.How?
There's a scene early on where Giovanni Ribisi, who plays the white collar boss overseeing the mining on the planet of Pandora, is putting balls into a mug across a stretch of Astro turf. After one rolls in, he leans back and yells, "I love this putter!" which of course made me sit up and stare through my 3-D glasses at what putter he was using.
Cameron had two options here. One, he could have had his prop guy spend an hour making some weird, futuristic-looking thing. After all, it's the year 2154. No doubt putting technology has advanced a lot in 144 years. Maybe Ribisi would be using a new Scotty Cameron, which at 400K a pop, would remain overpriced.
Even cooler would have been if Cameron had gone with some famous retro putter, like an old Wilson 8802 or something.But no. Best I could tell, Ribisi's great find was this piece of crap, some forgettable Taylor Made mallet. I mean, come on, James. I'm willing to suspend disbelief just so far.
Then again, millions think Cameron's a genius. Perhaps Avatar portends of something even more unbelievable than human greed destroying planet Earth... a massive USGA equipment rollback.
