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[Kadri]

But anyway... 30 years later Star Wars is still everywhere . So ...

Never mind ...

Or should we ?


Kadri.

[Kadri]

Exclusive Interview With James Cameron ... about the vfx .

Near the 11 minute mark it got more interesting for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aao0YSITuxc

Kadri.

[domdib]

Having looked at the io9 article and the GeekBeat one, I'd say that the perspective of the writers is balanced out by some of the commenters. It's always easier to pick holes than to make constructive points.

I think that Cameron makes a good broad argument that all oppressive exploitative ideologies are dangerous and wrong. To be more nuanced in his argument, he would have needed a 4 hour movie (will there be a Director's cut??? And there is nuance too - just reflect for a moment on the motives of Grace - how pure are they?). Let's not forget that Cameron makes these points in the context of a mega-blockbuster whose pace scarcely flags for 2 hours 40 minutes, and which in addition looks positively ravishing. He may paint the aliens as a little too noble,  but they're not perfect (I won't say why to avoid spoilers).

One of the io9 commenters makes the good point that it's unusual to be cheering on the aliens against humans. All in all, the story is more sophisticated than Star Wars, yet at the same time manages to deploy recognisable archetypes intelligently in a kick-ass action movie that's nicely leavened by romance and looks absolutely stunning. What's not to like?

[TheBlackHole]

Saw it this afternoon. The 3D was a little too realistic, though. In the scene where Jake wakes up after the destruction of the Home Tree, there were ashes flying all over and I saw one that looked like it came right out of the screen and then I felt something in my eye!

[reck]

Exclusive Interview With James Cameron ... about the vfx .

Near the 11 minute mark it got more interesting for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aao0YSITuxc

Kadri.

Wow what an amazing interview, thanks a lot for posting it.

This is not just another sanitised movie interview with a journalist asking the same old questions. It's like Jim Cameron has gone round to this persons house, sat on her couch, she has turned on her budged camcorder and they just had a chat about all the interesting techie stuff about the film. They go into a lot more detail about the cgi than you wouldn't normally get in an interview such as the GI, self shadowing etc. Highly recommended.

I can't wait to see where Jim Cameron goes with the technology over his next few films.

[otakar]

Here comes my review. As the IMAX theater was completely sold out I had to downgrade to the regular screen 3D version. For those of you with glasses, unless they're oversized, don't worry, the 3D glasses will fit over them just fine.

But on to the movie. I was blown away by this one. I am sure the 3D effects are a big part of it, I have a hard time believing I could be so absorbed by this movie without it, but so are the cinematics and the world one enters. Luckily, my expectations for the characters and story were greatly tamped down to begin with - having seen the trailer and reading a few reviews helped a lot. It proved to be very true - nothing original about the story and the dialog at times is quite painful. Luckily, that let me fully concentrate on what I was looking at - and that just filled my senses to the brim. What a ride! Yeah, for this bundle of cash you would expect something extraordinary, but this is something that truly pushes the boundaries.

I propose Peter Jackson drop all current commitments and get to work on LOTR 3D. $300 million or so should not be hard to come up with for funding. As computer technology has evolved quite a bit as well, I shudder at how those monsters would end up looking today   

[Kadri]

...
Wow what an amazing interview...

This is not just another sanitised movie interview with a journalist asking the same old questions. It's like Jim Cameron has gone round to this persons house, sat on her couch, she has turned on her budged camcorder and they just had a chat about all the interesting techie stuff about the film. They go into a lot more detail about the cgi than you wouldn't normally get in an interview such as the GI, self shadowing etc. Highly recommended.
...

I thought the same. Most interviews are really standard question-answer routine .
This was in depth and really informative. First i thought nearly 30 minutes...too long...but then ı wanted more of it 

Cheers.

Kadri.

[matrix2003]

Hey techhie types!  Check out the hardware that rendered this movie:

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/12/22/the-data-crunching-powerhouse-behind-avatar/

[Kadri]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/227737

Only 3 pages . Not so much new things. But the last page was interesting for me.

" CAMERON: I think you're right. What's interesting in the marketing evolution of Avatar is that we put out a teaser trailer that was all about the imagery,
and people were less than satisfied, because they weren't learning enough about the story.
We put out a story trailer that set the stage and told you what the main character was, and all of a sudden people were wildly excited about the movie.
There's the proof within the marketing evolution of a single film. "

With directors James Cameron and Peter Jackson .

Kadri.

[rcallicotte]

LOL

Saw it this afternoon. The 3D was a little too realistic, though. In the scene where Jake wakes up after the destruction of the Home Tree, there were ashes flying all over and I saw one that looked like it came right out of the screen and then I felt something in my eye!

[Thelby]

Hey techhie types!  Check out the hardware that rendered this movie:

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/12/22/the-data-crunching-powerhouse-behind-avatar/

That is definately a Powerhouse to envy!!! 

[Oshyan]

Well, I finally saw it. I must say I was a bit underwhelmed, especially after all the hype. Are the environments beautiful and well-rendered? Absolutely. Do they look virtually photoreal at all times? Unfortunately not, but a reasonable amount of the time I suppose they do. Are there some glaring flaws? Absolutely. Well, glaring to me at least. But the visuals aren't really what disappointed me so much, at least not the computer graphics.

Instead it was the 3D and IMAX theater I saw it in and, as I have now heard from others who have seen it elsewhere, this does not seem to be entirely unique to me. The 3D effect does work, but it makes a 70 foot tall screen look a lot smaller (still big, but not nearly as impressive), and worst of all it makes almost everything look slightly fuzzy at all times. This was really disappointing considering I paid extra not only for IMAX but also for 3D. So now I am thinking I might see it in 2D in a regular theater to see the comparison.

The other thing that was disappointing, though expected, was the story and dialog. But honestly I did not expect how really pretty bad it would be. This is a movie that borrows more than just a little from many better movies that came before, from Dances With Wolves to The Matrix to Braveheart and many more, and they're not just general concepts or little things, there are some pretty blatantly copied things.

Visually, as I said it was fairly impressive, but I didn't find it to be hugely creative. The main alien race was so humanoid it was almost not worth calling them alien (I imagine this was to keep them as easy to empathize with as possible), and all the creatures of the planet seemed to basically be versions of Earth creatures with a couple extra limbs and reptilian skin. There is a dog analog, bird analog, horse analog, and so on. All stick to the same formula - take away all the hair (one wonders if this was a rendering issue), add some limbs, make the face more scary/toothy, and you're done. Nevermind the creation of totally unique species. Heck some even had the same name as Earth creatures - lemur, for example.

And the vegetation? Why 50% or more of it looked almost exactly like our vegetation. It was only at night that much of it looked different, and that was just glowing. Beautiful, yes, but honestly not that creative IMHO.

So yeah, Avatar is maybe a small landmark in the evolution of 3D, but not as large as anyone thought I think. Pirates of the Caribbean still impressed me more, and even Benjamin Button, despite not totally succeeding at suspension of disbelief, still had a harder task and accomplished it better I think.

Still, I will probably see it again and line Cameron's pockets even more, just to satisfy my curiosity about 3D vs. 2D. Given the great hype at CES this year about 3D coming to the home, I'm quite curious to see just how it affects the quality of presentation. If it's as bad as I fear, I have strong doubts that 3D will become popular at home any time soon. But do keep my experience of the softening 3D effect in mind when considering my opinion of the visuals. Perhaps I'll be more impressed when I see it in 2D...

- Oshyan

[CCC]

I think i was a bit more unimpressed by Cameron's world and story. The story itself was formulaic. I did not feel for any of the protagonists because mainly due to i think we did not get to know them well enough and events were taking place to quickly. The natives and creatures were in fact not very alien when one looks at what HR Giger did for the Space Jockey design, now there is something other worldly which in effect inspired me to create my own odd worlds in my spare time trying my best to make a world seem less familiar to earth rather then familiar but by no means am i against anyone film maker being inspired by the world around them, however i feel that lessens the experience of something fantastic.

I just wish with all of the time and money put into a mass scale of a film production that we would see something more alien and a better layed out plot and characters you care about. I felt more for Wall-E, a trash robot then i did any of the Na'Vi, let alone Jake. I was thinking Dances With Wolves as well, i though ah man, Cameron, come on, you did so well for Terminator 2, Aliens. What happened there?

The film score was even mundane. I read that Horner said that this was his most ambitious score to date. Not really, what made me even think less alien and more earthy was the themes and instruments he used throughout the score. A lot of Celtic, South American sounds. This could never top Goldsmith's Alien score which he used a multitude of out of place instruments that most composers do not use as well as running some though a tape echo to get some really odd acoustic sounds. Horner used to do better before he toned his flair down since the mid 90s.

The floating terrains are nothing new if anyone has ever played the Shatter Zone pen and paper RPG so to me it was no big deal. Seen it in ink. The forests were just a glorified amazon thing with ocean stuff thrown in. The Na'Vi were like the Mayan and Native Americans of the US so what i summed up was a big deal reaction to most of the aspects of the Na'Vi.

Benjamin Button i had only seen once. Could never watch it again because it made a grown man cry but Wall-E did the same thing.

I can't be to up on 3d myself. I mean i feel that it is very hard to bring the high-end theater experience to most costumers in such a way as to emulate the HD 3D thing and this is coming from a person who used to work with multi-millionaires a few years ago and do a bit of home theater until the market crashed. I don't think you can justify a large enough screen, a uber expensive projector or TV, enough speakers, banana cable and so on. I think for the most part the theater will still serve its grand purpose.

[FrankB]

funny how the impressions vary. For example, I totally regret to have rented the Benjamin Button movie once, and Wall-E was as lame as it can get
... for me, that is.

[old_blaggard]

Whether you liked the movie or not, you should get a kick out of this: http://failblog.org/2010/01/10/avatar-plot-fail/