Avalon

2001 "Dare to enter a world of future videogames."
6.4| 1h47m| R| en| More Info
Released: 11 November 2001 Released
Producted By: Bandai Visual
Country: Poland
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: http://www.miramax.com/movie/avalon
Info

In a future world, young people are increasingly becoming addicted to an illegal (and potentially deadly) battle simulation game called Avalon. When Ash, a star player, hears of rumors that a more advanced level of the game exists somewhere, she gives up her loner ways and joins a gang of explorers. Even if she finds the gateway to the next level, will she ever be able to come back to reality?

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Director

Mamoru Oshii

Production Companies

Bandai Visual

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Avalon Audience Reviews

GamerTab That was an excellent one.
Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.
LouHomey From my favorite movies..
Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.
nightcrawlercyp-311-219346 At first I found it amazing that a lot of people liked this movie so much. Then I remembered of the Forer effect and everything was clearer.The movie is very vague and all over the place and does not know that it wants. Also as someone that have both played games and worked for a brief time in the gaming industry I saw a lot of problems. But let's take things one of a time. Let's explain what happens in the movie. In more than 60% of the movie (the whole sepia thing) most things are not real. Is hard to tell if any part in the beginning is real. The class Real is the real world. The people in the hospitals that are in a coma are actually players that just logged out of the game and never returned. It is interesting to note that there are very few people in the first part of the game and that there appears not to be anyone in the hospital except the coma people. Also we do not see children animals (except for the one dog) blood (you would think sooner or later someone will cut his fingers with a knife).In the second part of the movie (Class Real) we see all the normal elements of real world. A lot of people said the colors were too bright, but if you spend a lot of time only seeing shades of gray and sepia when you get outside everything is brighter. The reason why the man disappears when she shots him is because she has mental break down. She cannot accept she really killed someone and here mind just rewrites everything.The dog in the car is irrelevant. She just noticed it because she likes that type of dog (maybe did not have one in real life). The reason the dog appears on some posters is because her mind creates hallucinations. How about the Bishop? This is the complicated part. I believe that originally the game was created to brainwash people into becoming assassins. Also the man at end probably tried to pull her off from the game even on the risk of his own life but failed. The message "welcome to Avalon" can mean either that she is a coma dreaming new levels, or that she just logged back on after killing the man.OK, now let me tell you what I find stupid and proof that the person directing this movie never played a game in his life:1. If they have technology for full VR then they will not have graphics this shitty.2. The random characters on the screens. It is the only thing copied directly from Matrix and in fact is one of the most stupid things about Matrix. Why would they be there? Making images from fonts has not been used for a long long long time. (if you did not have windows 95 on your computer you probably never seen such a game).3. The way object appear and disappear is stupid. Usually there are wreckage and dead bodies in the area for a while. They usually disappear either after a period of time or after you leave the area, never disappear instantly. 4. All the characters in the game are the same. In a real game like warcraft or whatever every character was significantly different and at high levels you would not be able to change your specialization so easy. Actually to change your specialization you would usually have to lose all your exp, and most of other stats.5.scenes repeated continuously and boring scenes like her cutting vegetables... really? was this interesting for anyone?6. No matter how realistic a virtual world is, usually the AI of the NPC is sacrificed. This means that doing something totally unexpected to a NPC (for instance kiss a waiter or punch it) will cause an strange and unrealistic response.I has high hopes for the movie. SAO-sword art online (at least the first part) was a great implementation of the virtual reality game idea.
Henry Fields Avalon is a game, a virtual game that may kill you in real life. Sounds kind of familiar, right? You may think that this is nothing but a "Matrix" copy, but the truth is that it has its own aesthetic (so attractive and original) and even though I didn't understand anything I'm pretty sure that those who love online gaming, role games and stuff will like "Avalon". I mean, this must be just like porn for them!! As I said before I gotta point out the look of the movie, the nebulous photography and the soundtrack... Oh, and Malgorzata Foremniak is gorgeous!!.*My rate: 5'5/10
Tom-2128 Lot's of comments compare this movie to "The Matrix" but they don't point out the obvious difference: the plot of "Avalon" is the reverse of "The Matrix". In "The Matrix", the main character starts out in the game (the Matrix) and moves to the real world. In "Avalon", the main character (Ash) goes in the opposite direction.Another interesting point is that the philosophy of "Avalon" is the opposite of that of "The Matrix". In "The Matrix", living in reality is presented as the highest value, worth sacrificing comfort and security. In "Avalon", the point is that the real isn't morally superior to the artificial: choosing the artificial (i.e. virtual reality) is presented as a perfectly reasonable choice.There is a dispute about whether the first part of the movie is boring or just depicting a boring character. It's both. The problem is that the director apparently didn't realize that showing a boring life doesn't have to be boring. He could have used techniques such as showing a dull sequence, then referring to it briefly several times. "Groundhog Day" used that technique.A common complaint in many comments is that Ash is emotionless and her real world is bland, boring, and (almost literally) colorless. That is crucial to the movie: it has to make the point that Ash's life outside the game is meaningless.I like the fact that the movie combines Dungeons and Dragons, video games, and Multi User Dungeons, and it handles each of them accurately.We can summarize the point of the movie as: the artificial world we create can be better than the world we live in.
jomaier-1 While movies like Blade Runner, Gattaca and Dark City illustrate the potential to artificially >produce live< together with its uncontrollable feedbacks, Avalon plays in a world were life is worth nothing, since it is thought to be artificial. Ash's role is defined by stalking down everything and everyone who moves along. With her virtual reality gear on, herself and others might easily mistake her appearance for an avatar like Lara Croft. At first sight the goal of the game is to access Avalon – a sacred island that grants eternal youth and wisdom at the price of total oblivion. Ironically Ash is almost most of her time already in that state of mind – a beautiful young survivor in your favourite present-game-show. At the climax of Avalon's story appears a potential male-female-love-encounter: First as an identity-reassuring phantasm since Ash apparently is playing the game to meet her loved-one. And last the encounter serves as a potential (emergency) exit to gain back a sense of human reality. 1 am going to argue that in either case human reality remains a lost concept, but worthwhile to be maintained as an illusion of real virtuality -- in order to avoid sudden death and other unbearable events within game-levels without a reset button.