I decided to watch Forrest Gump because I remember loving this when I watched it the first time. And watching it again made me realize how much I love these kinds of movies. The movie follows the life of Forrest Gump. He faces a lot of hardships but he never let it interfere with his happiness. From having a below average IQ to being shot, he always believes that good things will happen and goes after his dreams. He succeeds in life with a mixture of luck and destiny and he has been present in the most important events in the second half of the 20th century. Through out the movie, he is told by a lot of people what life is about but in the end, he comes to his own conclusion.

Throughout the film, we see him teach Elvis Presley to dance, be named after the founder of Klu Klux Klan, going to a Black Panther Party meeting, be in a TV show with John Lennon and be sent to Vietnam War. These are all big events and even though Forrest Gump was fictional, it made learning about history in a fun way. This is probably why a critic argued that this film white washed and dumbed down American History which I disagree. The critic states, ” However, “Forrest Gump” deserves scrutiny, not because its cheesy protagonist has become a pop culture punchline — after all, Forrest’s box-of-chocolates metaphor works just fine — but viewed 25 years after its release lead to box office success and six Oscars, it remains a bad movie that gets worse with age. Its lazy storytelling has very scary implications.” I might agree that if Forrest Gump premiered this year and not in 1994, it might’ve received more hate than what it got when it was first released. The reason being that people are easily offended now than before. They might think that the movie romanticized the tragedies that happened like the Vietnam war. Watching the movie, I did not see them romanticizing the tragedies. It made me want to learn more about the Vietnam War so to me, it was informational.
Another critic also argued that the movie made people ignore the tragedies that has happened. He states, “Yet Forrest Gump has persevered, still celebrating 20 years of ignoring the tragedies that lurk beneath our lives like great whites in the dark waters below his shrimping boat. ” They also mentioned how he only got his business to be successful because Hurricane Katrina wiped out all his competition. I didn’t see it as people ignoring the tragedies but a way of seeing it as there’s always a rainbow after the rain.

While the movie, “Forrest Gump” only used CGI to serve the film, the movie “Avatar” used CGI to drape over the movie. I’m not necessarily saying it as a bad thing but both movies are completely different from each other. While “Forrest Gump” used CGI to simply make a feather move, to show a man to be amputated, and to make a few thousand extras look like millions, the movie “Avatar” revolved around CGI. James Cameron made history with the technology he used to capture actors’ facial expressions in real time that was used later for the animation. The movie is about a mission of the U.S. army to Pandora, where the Avatars live, to get resources that the Earth badly needed. They also want to study the avatars and Pandora itself but in order for them to do that, they have to transfer their consciousness to Avatar hybrids.

The movie, “Avatar” was once the highest grossing film off all time before losing to the movie, “Avengers: Endgame” just recently, garnering a gross of $2,789,679,794. Many argue that the only reason Avatar became the highest grossing film is because the movie was meant to be seen in 3D and the price tickets are higher. An article states, “It’s also worth noting that “Avatar” got an extra bump because so many people saw it in 3-D and IMAX 3-D, and those tickets are significantly pricier than your average entry fee.” The movie flopped the first week it was released but because of word of mouth from the movie goers of the first week. It is a movie that you would either hate or love. A critic watched it years after the movie was released and she did not understand what the hype of the movie was about. She states, “Sometimes watching a “classic” after its prime makes it hard to understand what everyone loved about it.” Her critic is understandable as one of the reasons why Avatar was popular is because the way James Cameron filmed it was new back then. It is understandable that she wouldn’t like it since it is not “new” anymore. She also mentioned that one of the probable reasons she did not like the movie is that she did not watch the movie in 3D which was supposed to be how the movie is watched. I do not agree with this at all because if a movie is truly great, it shouldn’t matter if the movie was intended to be watched in 3D or not. Movies are supposed to be enjoyed because of the story. I did not watch the film in 3D when it was released but still enjoyed it. She probably would’ve enjoyed it more if she watched it when it was first released.

While there is no denying that the movies, “Forrest Gump” and “Avatar” are completely different in terms of the story line and the technology used to make the films, both movies are considered one of the best movies of our time. People would either love or hate both movies, but they are considered classics. Both I have noticed that you would need to watch it when it’s newly released to actually enjoy it.

Resources:

https://www.indiewire.com/2019/07/forrest-gump-bad-movie-25-anniversary-1202154214/

https://www.laweekly.com/we-need-to-talk-about-forrest-gump/

https://www.businessinsider.com/i-watched-avatar-for-the-first-time-2016-7

https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/movies/ct-avatar-vs-star-wars-20160105-story.html