- This topic has 74 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 15 years, 3 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
@rob 42812 wrote:
I assumed that all the 3d screenings would be in DLP as well. I have noticed though that frame rates are detected differently by each person, so I was just trying to make sure there was something I didn’t know about. The only “issue” I had during the movie was my own damn fault — my eyes kept drying out because I wasn’t blinking!!
yes, i was worried about going into a coma from all the eye candy as well. 🙂
and one more thing. i didn’t even mention the musical score.
i felt there were at least two musical cues that were as good as – if not better than – the best music cues in star wars (maybe not the originals but definitely the prequels). okay, in two weeks i’ll probably say they were as good or maybe just a little bit below. but the point is that james horner really stepped up. i know he’s no stranger to epic and sweeping scores but he really earned his keep on this one.
the more the whole experience percolates inside my head the more i love what cameron has done. he has given us star wars for adults. (maybe not in content but definitely in spirit)
this movie is profound and industry-changing. and that is not hyperbole. you need to see this movie, you need to see it in 3D, and you need to go in without expectations or preconceptions.
okay one more last thing. do you guys that have seen it realize what cameron has done? it just hit me. the whole point of his 3D vision. he has made us all avatars within this viewing experience. obviously cinema is art, but with this movie cameron has just made going to the movies an art exhibit.
this all may sound cheesey and corny but i’m dead serious. i don’t think a movie has affected me so much since the fountain and its very unexpected. this is certainly not the “popcorn” flick i had in mind when i went to see it today. amazing.
My essence still senses Bucho's women.
@Larkitect 42813 wrote:
… and you need to go in without expectations or preconceptions.
Haha, it’s way too late for that mate, as this thread showed I only lasted about 5 minutes with my intention to avoid all the pre-release hype, and now the post-release hype is piled on top of that. I’m just glad I saw the unconvincing preview footage and have read the unconvinced AICN review to balance out all the love the film is getting, because it’s still a week until I’ll see it, and my mood will remain skeptically optimistic – if there is such a thing. It worked for me with Star Trek, Where The Wild Things Are and District 9 this year, I figure I’ll give Avatar the same mindset and it should work out nice.
- Women sense my power and they seek the life essence.
Going back and reading the posts of you three guys who saw it I’m mostly in agreement after seeing it a couple of days ago. Overall it was a great, positive, eye-sex experience sitting there with 3D (Imax) Pandora being revealed in front of me and I was filled with one of the best kinds of visual, transportive cinematic wonder at so many aspects of that world. Not just the jungle and a lot of the flora and fauna, but the badass hardware – Cameron is a fucking master at designing cool vehicles and weapons and having us vicariously feel a little of the thrill of operating them.
I think the best summation of the film I’ve read or heard was Annalee Newitz saying, “Dragons fight helicopters.” That’s pretty much as awesome as it gets. Lightsaber duels are cool, time travelling DeLoreans are neato, being able to slow down time to dodge bullets and use kung fu is badass, but riding a dragon into an aerial battle with helicopters? That’s a magnificent idea and boner-inducingly fun to watch.
And those celebrated Na’vi FX themselves? Stupendously marvellous and often breathtakingly compelling to watch. Another significant step in the timeline of expressive non-cartoonish CGI that started with Gollum and ran through King Kong and Davy Jones to arrive here. It doesn’t feel like a monumental jump, because those other creations were and are very, very special, but given how the Na’vi are facially closer to human than those other creatures it’s definitely a remarkable one, and the fact they’ve accomplished it in 3D is even more reason to salute Cameron and his teams of technicians and artists. As they advance they’ll work out the little kinks of physics that jarred the CGI into the foreground at times, but as they stand they’re pretty fucking awesome.
All of this, and the inherent charisma of the cast members, let the film fly in spite of its flaws and be near total blast to watch. The question I still have is how long it will stand up once the euphoria of the experience wears off. Is this film good enough to live on in my imagination in the way the great blockbusters do?
@rob 42805 wrote:
And why would I do that? Why would I subject myself to a movie repeatedly where the story wasn’t that great?
Because when you see that T-Rex the first time, you almost shit your pants.
Now, there’s a lot of the movie that I really like. Jeff Goldblum was perfect casting, Sam Neill was great, and the action scenes really are pretty awesome. And what a score! But what really set it apart for me was the special effects — that’s what made it special to me. That what looked like a real fuckin’ T-Rex walking in that street. And that we were on the cusp of a CG revolution.
I think this highlights what I found the weakest elements of Avatar Rob, and why, although I felt the same as you about Jurassic Park, we differ about this aspect of Avatar. It’s not that the actors in Avatar are worse than those in Jurassic Park, it’s that Spielberg is a master at connecting the predictable beats on that well-worn story, whereas in Avatar Cameron falls short in that area. We know the likely fate of some of the support characters because they fill roles in a story we’ve seen before, but their deaths are unmoving because the characters are never given active, engaging personalitites, only behavioral tropes. Avatar relies pretty heavily on us recognizing the characters as cyphers instead of creating genuinely engaging characters.
And it obviously works for many people, the recognizable things about the down-on-his-luck guy who gets a second chance, the fierce and proud native warrior princess, the pacifist scientist, the nail-chewing military hardass leader and the heartless corporate stooge are hung on good actors and it’s enough for the movie not to fail; it holds its own. But it’s not enough for Avatar to take its place as any kind of classic, because in a classic those characters would become iconic themselves rather than being merely constructed from the memories of other icons.
The second difference is that in spite of the awesomeness of the overall sensory experience it’s still not as iconic in cinematic terms as seeing those dinosaurs come to life, particularly that T-Rex, in Jurassic Park. Great blockbuster movies like Jaws, Raiders, Star Wars, Terminator 2, The Matrix, Aliens, Jurassic Park … they have these iconic images and scenes. For all the visual glory of Avatar, for all the awesomeness of the concept of dragons fighting helicopters and mech-suited marines fighting 10 foot tall cat-elves with carbon fiber reinforced skeletons, it didn’t have anything memorable enough or mindblowing enough to show us in terms of pure visual storytelling genius. The mindblowing juice was spent on the world creation, not the storytelling.
I mean, we all agree that the film is definitely worth seeing and a special experience, and I don’t want to tear down anyone else’s good time, especially not you superb, mad bastards, but we’re movie nerds so we love to talk about the intricacies of this shit and we just might disagree whether it’s of the same caliber as blockbuster titans like Jurassic Park. I think in the future I’m much more likely to reach for Jurassic Park or The Matrix or Empire Strikes Back off the dvd shelf than Avatar. To me Avatar is solidly C-division in storytelling terms (although the story itself is great), but solidly A-division in terms of the visual impact. Overall it’s a B-division film, and that means I liked it plenty, it just doesn’t mean I love it. I think the storytelling in Jurassic Park was top-drawer blockbuster magic, and it’s all about the way those characters live and breathe.
- Women sense my power and they seek the life essence.
my ‘star wars’ moment in films was the first time i watched the matrix. seriously, i’ve watched it hundreds of times and have talked about it – and in greater depth – than any movie i’ve ever seen. even more than the fountain (and i utterly adore that movie).
so very good points bucho. it will be interesting to see where i place avatar in the pantheon of cinema after the hype cools down and i sit down and watch it at home and can really analyze it in an intimate home setting (where i always enjoy movies the most).
My essence still senses Bucho's women.
The Matrix is a pretty good comparison to Star Wars because it has its own share of memorable and iconic images and characters, characters who, even if they remind us of other heroes, teachers and villains, have enough of a unique, consistent and rounded personality to become those icons.
I can’t say the same for Avatar, in which the hero is okay but no deeper than a video game character, the teacher is a more boring example of another character played by the same actress and the villain is pure 2D cartoon fun, but nowhere near as compelling in terms of motivation, menace or capability as Smith or Vader. I’d say the love interests in The Matrix and Avatar are about on par, in fact I thought Neytiri was the most well-rounded character and was pretty well done by Zoe Saldana and is more interesting than Trinity, but still not as much fun as Leia.
Another comparison to consider is this year’s Star Trek, in which the plot was much worse than Avatar in terms of coherence and the villain was weaker, but this new cast playing the great classic characters in Star Trek elevated the shit out of that film. In Avatar it’s not the cast or characters that elevate it above its storytelling faults, it’s the kickass spectacle of inhabiting Pandora for a while. But is visual spectacle going to give it the legs it would’ve had if they’d spent more time getting the story to pop as well as the visuals? I’m guessing probably not.
- Women sense my power and they seek the life essence.
Yeah, Bucho… I wasn’t very verbose about the story points, but that’s why I rated the movie the way I did. Iconic only in it’s experience. I don’t think it will stand the test of time, it’s a great experience and a ‘good’ execution of a movie, little more. I think Star Trek is a better movie though.
In one of my posts, I said that the story was a 2.5 out of 4. That’s a failing grade for story.
Being able to really sit back and think and let this thing stew, I know exactly why I’ve been championing this movie to everyone who will listen — this most certainly is a new wave of filmmaking, make no mistake about it. Does it mean that in three years people will still be talking about Avatar? Maybe, but mostly because of the great leap forward in effects and the use of 3d to tell the story, not the story itself. And, well, I’m a bit of a fan of James Cameron.
I’ve talked to many who have said that they felt “moved” by the story — either these are people who haven’t watched a whole lot of movies, or they’re confusing being moved by the experience with being moved by the story.
I love Jim Cameron and all, but I believe that the most amazing 3d using this technology hasn’t been done yet. It could be Spielberg, or Ridley Scott, or some unknown director that will unleash an amazing spectacle upon my noggin that will confirm what I’m saying.
It could be 3d porn. Ohhhhh, yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh….
@rob 42882 wrote:
I love Jim Cameron and all, but I believe that the most amazing 3d using this technology hasn’t been done yet. It could be Spielberg, or Ridley Scott, or some unknown director
or maybe george lucas! how much better could the prequels have been with jar jar binks jumping out of the screen at you?
thankfully george did the prequels before this tech was ready.
i would love to see ridley scott revisit the blade runner universe with something like this.
man, i would love to have seen jurassic park for the first time with this kind of tech.
i definitely think rob is right. the best is yet to come.
i still feel 3d is a gimmick (but an enjoyable gimmick). i guess avatar is the first movie i’ve seen in 3d where the technique seemed the most justified. it was definitely an extension of the storytelling and extremely immersive.
cameron proved his mettle. i wouldn’t mind seeing spielberg take a crack at this stuff.
My essence still senses Bucho's women.
@rob 42882 wrote:
In one of my posts, I said that the story was a 2.5 out of 4. That’s a failing grade for story.
Being able to really sit back and think and let this thing stew, I know exactly why I’ve been championing this movie to everyone who will listen — this most certainly is a new wave of filmmaking, make no mistake about it. Does it mean that in three years people will still be talking about Avatar? Maybe, but mostly because of the great leap forward in effects and the use of 3d to tell the story, not the story itself. And, well, I’m a bit of a fan of James Cameron.
I’ve talked to many who have said that they felt “moved” by the story — either these are people who haven’t watched a whole lot of movies, or they’re confusing being moved by the experience with being moved by the story.
I love Jim Cameron and all, but I believe that the most amazing 3d using this technology hasn’t been done yet. It could be Spielberg, or Ridley Scott, or some unknown director that will unleash an amazing spectacle upon my noggin that will confirm what I’m saying.
It could be 3d porn. Ohhhhh, yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh….
I think Cameron will be hard to top as far as presenting spectacle in 3D, if anyone’s going to make more jaws drop it’ll probably be him outdoing himself. But it’ll be once the tech is deployed on a better developed story that it’ll really start to hit home how immersive it can be, because once you’re deeper invested in characters that 3D will become really enveloping.
I’ve read that Aronofsky isn’t impressed with the new 3D but I’m sure guys like Guillermo Del Toro and Tim Burton and Sam Raimi and Chris Nolan and JJ Abrams and the Wachowskis will be all over it at some point. I’d love to see what a master stylist like Fincher or a mad bastard like Herzog could do with it too. Jackson and Spielberg are lined up to make Tintin with it, which, as an adaptation of a well-known (world-wide at least, maybe not in the US) cartoon character, should be at least a trip.
But I still think Cameron, if he’s hungry enough for it, could be the first guy to make a genuine mo-cap 3D classic as long as he can check enough of his ego to bring in a quality writer or two to help him tighten up the script. He’s still a master stylist himself, he’s a premiere league director of action and atmosphere and when he’s on form no one can top him in that department, he’s just slipped up as a writer and story/character-developer from time to time.
- Women sense my power and they seek the life essence.
oh man, a tim burton styled environment with this would be really good.
the environments in mirrormask would have worked, too. i guess this 3d stuff is seeming less gimicky to me if it has the proper art direction and isn’t just an excuse to try and make me dodge something onscreen.
My essence still senses Bucho's women.
Get your popcorn ready boys!
Apparently Avatar got pushed out of IMAX by Alice in Wonderland.
So its coming back to theaters august 27th and will be 8 minutes longer.
I’ll pass.
http://www.cinematical.com/2010/07/08/avatar-theatrical-re-release-set-for-august-27th/
My essence still senses Bucho's women.
I figured this was going to happen eventually. I’d be surprised if it’s met with as much fanfare by the general sheep. It’s a good 3D experience, but I think people have remembered that they don’t care as much about the movie as they wanted to pretend.
But then, I wouldn’t have predicted it make eleventy billion dollars, so what do I know?
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.