Avatar - James Cameron Returns! (Spoilers in thread, obviously!)

Sad Max said:
There's a reason old stories keep getting re-told. Why this is such a problem for some people re: Avatar is really a mystery, to me. Really, was someone broadcasting far and wide that Avatar was going to be 'the story that has never been brought to screen, ever before?' I don't think so.
Click to expand...
I think it's because Cameron was mouthing off and promised a 'Game-Changer'.

It's all done very well but all of it has also been done before, from story to special effects.

I think I said "WOW" more often when I first saw Terminator 2.

Good action flick though.

MAH
 
If it's not a problem for you, it's not a problem, is it? :D

For me, if a story feels too familiar, then the performances and technique have to carry the weight. In Avatar, the latter did, the former was woefully lacking. So my experience with Avatar is that it stands to be appreciated on some merits, certainly, but not so much to be considered even among my favorite films of 2009.

But lacking the "originality" of story didn't make me enjoy it any less. It simply does not allow me to consider it a great movie.
 
SPZ said:
Personally I think the film ends badly: by letting the humans go they basically sentenced the Na'vi's to death- No way would people stop pursuing the richness of Pandora, and they would just come back with way more troops and guns, based on the "fight terror with terror"premise Cameron launched as a plot on the movie.
Click to expand...

The humans are coming back anyway, there's probably already another ship on its way even as the film ends. I totally agree with you that there's no way the humans will stop pursuing the "unobtanium*" (which is why I say they're coming back anyway), but what's the alternative? Killing every human on the planet who isn't sympathetic to the Na'vi? That's only going to make things worse when the humans come again.

Also, I don't know that the Na'vi are necessarily against humans mining the "unobtainium." They just get a little pissed when the humans knock over their sacred places (or their home) to do it. And yeah, there's Parker's line about how easy it is to find sacred places there, but I wonder if Jake can't find a way to strike a balance.

Also also, there has to be a limit to how much military hardware can come on one ship; presumably, what there was on Pandora in this movie came over a period of years. We don't know how many ships there are, or what their schedule is, but the ship that Jake came on certainly didn't have much in the way of hardware and really not that many troops, either...
 
I always had the impression that the mining operation was actually very lightly garrisoned, for its size.

The battle near the end doesn't really involve that much equipment or manpower, on the human side. I doubt they planned on a big frontal stand-up fight - heck, look at the panic triggered by the Na'vi gathering at the Tree of Souls...
 
Sad Max said:
Well, it is.



Bolding added to the part that is objectively untrue.
Click to expand...
Since you say so I guess it's true.

It's really not though. :) Motion capture is old news and has been done in plenty of movies, including the facial capture.

They did it well, but again, it's nothing new.

I won't even touch on the lack of creativity concerning the story.

Again, I LIKED this movie! Check my review posted in this thread.
It's just not what he promised.

Doesn't matter though, it's eating up the box office.
 
stephenmick said:
If it's not a problem for you, it's not a problem, is it? :D

For me, if a story feels too familiar, then the performances and technique have to carry the weight. In Avatar, the latter did, the former was woefully lacking. So my experience with Avatar is that it stands to be appreciated on some merits, certainly, but not so much to be considered even among my favorite films of 2009.

But lacking the "originality" of story didn't make me enjoy it any less. It simply does not allow me to consider it a great movie.
Click to expand...
Couldn't agree more.
 
Michael Anthony Horrigan said:
Since you say so I guess it's true.
Click to expand...

It would be true whether I said so, or not. Although in this particular case I know it's that true by virtue of having been there...

Michael Anthony Horrigan said:
It's really not though. :) Motion capture is old news and has been done in plenty of movies, including the facial capture.
Click to expand...

*shrug* Alexander Graham Bell might look at the most current high-speed fiber-optic communications systems technology, shrug, and say it's nothing new, and be correct to the about same degree and in much the same way.

Michael Anthony Horrigan said:
Doesn't matter though, it's eating up the box office.
Click to expand...

Box-office means something with regard to the quality of a film, but I don't think it means much. There's plenty of what a lot of us would agree (and have on this board in many cases agreed ) is highly-produced crap that did great box-office...but it was still just highly-produced crap.
 
Max, improving on technologies/techniques that have been used in countless other films is not a "GAME-CHANGER'.

It's in 3D, it has full motion and facial capture. Big deal? I don't get it.
I see the BTS he shows during every interview. It's nothing I haven't seen on other big budget films like this.
Just watch the special features and you'll see what I mean.

Tell me what he invented that has now changed the way films are made as we know it?
Is there some new technology here that I'm missing?

MAH
 
Actually Michael, I'll disagree with you here. I said earlier that the only impressive thing to me about the CGI was the faces. But that is indeed the holy grail for CGI. I don't think this was perfect, but it certainly climbed far enough out of the uncanny valley to be really really interesting.

To me, that was the game changer aspect.

But I'm pretty much all story-guy, so I was asleep through most of the movie :)
 
Mark Harris said:
Actually Michael, I'll disagree with you here. I said earlier that the only impressive thing to me about the CGI was the faces. But that is indeed the holy grail for CGI. I don't think this was perfect, but it certainly climbed far enough out of the uncanny valley to be really really interesting.

To me, that was the game changer aspect.

But I'm pretty much all story-guy, so I was asleep through most of the movie :)
Click to expand...
Have you seen The Curious Case of Benjamin Button?

Just because they did in numbers doesn't mean it hasn't been done before.

Does it?

It`s also been used in many other movies as well.
 
Mark Harris said:
But I'm pretty much all story-guy, so I was asleep through most of the movie :)
Click to expand...

I straddle the fence here. Yes, we've seen this same exact story done countless times before, BUT, Cameron does a reasonably good version of it, good enough that I got emotionally swept away by the end and that's what matters most to me, and the audience. Stephen King wrote about Edgar Rice Burroughs that 'he will never be regarded as a great writer, but he understood story values completely' and I think the same can be said for Cameron.
 
Michael Anthony Horrigan said:
Have you seen The Curious Case of Benjamin Button?

Just because they did in numbers doesn't mean it hasn't been done before.

Does it?

It`s also been used in many other movies as well.
Click to expand...

Sadly, no

*Brad Pitt's face glued to another actor
*Thinly veiled "Forest Gump"

Absolutely nothing that would make me want to see that movie.

Was that the same thing as avatar? I thought they just glued his face to another actor...
 
Batutta said:
I straddle the fence here. Yes, we've seen this same exact story done countless times before, BUT, Cameron does a reasonably good version of it, good enough that I got emotionally swept away by the end and that's what matters most to me, and the audience. Stephen King wrote about Edgar Rice Burroughs that 'he will never be regarded as a great writer, but he understood story values completely' and I think the same can be said for Cameron.
Click to expand...

Well, for me, I certainly don't begrudge anyone else from liking it.

But personally, having been addicted to too many good TV shows in recent years, with really great and complex characters, childishly simple storytelling no longer holds any appeal to me. It just doesn't interest me in the least. I even regard Star Wars Ep 4 as seriously goofy these days.

But again, in the case of Avatar, which is very well put together, I have no problem with other people enjoying it. I'm just not capable of being swept away by something like that.

But again again, I am not against simple characters. I brought this up before: NCFOM was as simple as it gets: One guy with bag of money. Another guy with gun. Period.

yet I was absolutely mesmerized every time I watched it...

so, it's a mystery...
 
Mark Harris said:
Sadly, no

*Brad Pitt's face glued to another actor
*Thinly veiled "Forest Gump"

Absolutely nothing that would make me want to see that movie.

Was that the same thing as avatar? I thought they just glued his face to another actor...
Click to expand...
It's pretty close. Those are his facial reactions we see on a CGI head. That why it looks like him and reacts like him. Face-wise.

But, Polar Express, the new Christmas Carol, those are movies that have done full performance capture. Facial and body. Many others as well.

Cameron has improved on it for sure.

MAH
 
Michael Anthony Horrigan said:
It's pretty close. Those are his facial reactions we see on a CGI head. That why it looks like him and reacts like him. Face-wise.

But, Polar Express, the new Christmas Carol, those are movies that have done performance capture. Facial and body. Many others as well.

Cameron has improved on it for sure.

MAH
Click to expand...

Yeah, but Polar Express gave me nightmares for like a year. Whatever they captured in the motion capture, IT WASN'T HUMAN!!! It was the ghost of a ghoulish Tom Hanks Doppleganger from a dimension of EVIL...
 
Mark Harris said:
But again again, I am not against simple characters. I brought this up before: NCFOM was as simple as it gets: One guy with bag of money. Another guy with gun. Period.

yet I was absolutely mesmerized every time I watched it...

so, it's a mystery...
Click to expand...
I'm still blown away by NCFOM.
It's almost the perfect movie.

'There Will be Blood' is also outstanding!
 
I think Avatar's most innovative aspect was to make narrative storytelling work in a 3D space, not only for cheap thrills but for those dialogue scenes. It used 3D DOF with great effect and gave us a glimpse of how 3D could work in conventional, non effects heavy films.

As for the Motion capture and CGI, it wasn't that impressive, IMO. Let's not forget that Cameron and the CGI department created an Alien race, so they didn't particularly face the challenge of "CGIying" the normal human form, which is probably the hardest thing to do realistically in CGI since it is what we, the audience, identify and know best to the tiny details- which penalized the likes of Final Fantasy, the Polar Express, Beowulf.

If I remember correctly, the CGI for the war machines and some shots were the humans were operating the walkers looked average at best. The Navi's and Pandora's animals looked believable due to their alien nature- the audience was much more tolerant to the CGI due to not being familiar with the forms.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top