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

No, Postmaster, there are a few of us 'schmucks" out here. Great technology - no emotion. When important people died, my reaction was not, "Oh no!!" It was, "OK, so much for so-an-so." And when people fell in love, my reaction was, "OK, they're a couple now," rather than, "That's terrific!"
 
Postmaster said:
Thou everyone seems to sing the praise of Avatar, to me it still looks like a PC Game.
Even the characters of Toy Story 1 or Cars had more emotions than the Navi.

And the Pocahontas in Space story? Don´t let me get into that.

So it looks like I´m still the only schmuck on this planet, that don´t thinks that Avatar is THE breakthrough in film making and 3D animation.

Should I see a doctor?

Frank
Click to expand...
Your fine :)
I'm right there with you. But I look at Avatar like Country Music or Rap, sure there are people that hate it but there's a crap ton more that love it and will die for it.
In the end at least the message is there, and I'm VERY happy about that. Being over simplified has it's benefits...
 
Postmaster:

the best way i describe the animation is this.

transformers mechanical animation was the best in looking photo real till this film for humanistic looks. you realize that they jump the barrier with realism? that and district 9 had the best looking effects to this date. We didn't think it would look that good till like 10 years from now. but companies like weta works have been trying since LOTR to make it the best. look at what we done since toy story. hell even toy story 3 looks way better in texturing than toy story 1.

the one thing i tell everyone is this. I saw robert zemeckis in my mind when this movie played. and what i saw was something out of a PTA film. a quick dolly shot to him putting a shot gun in his mouth pulling the trigger.

because avatar is what he been wanting to do for the past decade but his films are still stuck in the valley. avatar and d9 jumped the valley. getting humans to believe what they are looking at is something real is on a subconscious level, and I (i'm really critical of CGI) think these two films finally did it.
 
For some reason boxoffice mojo hasn't been updating Avatar in a timely manner. I bet it'll be at $950M+ worldwide by Sunday night ($345M domestic) but I don't think the numbers will post until Tuesday. Maybe they are just slow during the holidays. It crossed the $800M mark Thursday, today is Saturday and it's still showing $760M.
 
Avatar may not be the perfect marriage of story content and visual candy, but it sure presents a promise of the potential that filmmaking and moviegoing can be from now on. Similar conversations probably went on when talkies came out, and technicolor was introduced. Technology will never indulge resistance to this kind of evolution. There are too many people, thankfully, saying "What if..."
 
ChipG said:
For some reason boxoffice mojo hasn't been updating Avatar in a timely manner. I bet it'll be at $950M+ worldwide by Sunday night ($345M domestic) but I don't think the numbers will post until Tuesday. Maybe they are just slow during the holidays. It crossed the $800M mark Thursday, today is Saturday and it's still showing $760M.
Click to expand...

As for the $345 million domestic, I wonder when the numbnuts will come out of the woodwork and declare Avatar a failure because it's been out 2 weeks and has only made about $350 million domestic but had a $400 million+ budget.

And when I say numbnuts, I am not referring to any of the members of this site. If you go to other sites out there in the wild old web, there are some really stupid negative arguments and comments being put forth toward this film.

Thankfully those here that didn't like the film are able to debate and defend their viewpoint in a polite manner. :beer:
 
It only played here 4 days ending Dec 24. Not great timing for me. I had a few bucks afterwards where I could have seen it. Just saying, I know, they think "how could someone not have 10 bucks". Well, I didn't, so I missed it. Some of us aren't Mr. Money Bags. Maybe a Jan 1'st opening might be better in the future. Ya know, if you want to suck up all of the little pieces from the pan, money wise.

Just saying...they could have made a couple more bucks but had to try sucking Christmas out of me and I'm sure a few others. Didn't happen. I don't think that was the best plan. Imo. I'll catch it somewhere though. :)
 
spidey said:
Postmaster:

the best way i describe the animation is this.

transformers mechanical animation was the best in looking photo real till this film for humanistic looks. you realize that they jump the barrier with realism? that and district 9 had the best looking effects to this date. We didn't think it would look that good till like 10 years from now. but companies like weta works have been trying since LOTR to make it the best. look at what we done since toy story. hell even toy story 3 looks way better in texturing than toy story 1.

the one thing i tell everyone is this. I saw robert zemeckis in my mind when this movie played. and what i saw was something out of a PTA film. a quick dolly shot to him putting a shot gun in his mouth pulling the trigger.

because avatar is what he been wanting to do for the past decade but his films are still stuck in the valley. avatar and d9 jumped the valley. getting humans to believe what they are looking at is something real is on a subconscious level, and I (i'm really critical of CGI) think these two films finally did it.
Click to expand...

Agreed Spidey
 
It crossed $1B 2 hours ago... $1 BILLION dollars. Holly #$%@ 17 days. It's not even Sunday night.

Hope mojo gets thier overseas updates working again.
 
ChipG said:
It crossed $1B 2 hours ago... $1 BILLION dollars. Holly #$%@ 17 days. It's not even Sunday night.

Hope mojo gets thier overseas updates working again.
Click to expand...

Jeez. I figured it would do well, but now I think my initial prediction that it would top out at around 900 mil to 1.2 billion were probably too conservative.

I actually think this has a chance of dethroning Titanic. Even with some slight drop-off of attendance after this weekend, it could still do it if it keeps a steady pace of business over the next month or so.

Hell, 2012 was out for at least 2 months it seemed, so I can't imagine Avatar going away anytime soon.
 
Nektonic said:
Jeez. I figured it would do well, but now I think my initial prediction that it would top out at around 900 mil to 1.2 billion were probably too conservative.

I actually think this has a chance of dethroning Titanic. Even with some slight drop-off of attendance after this weekend, it could still do it if it keeps a steady pace of business over the next month or so.

Hell, 2012 was out for at least 2 months it seemed, so I can't imagine Avatar going away anytime soon.
Click to expand...

It just might. It's only 100 million away from dethroning Return of the King for the number 2 spot. Let's hope it's not another 12 years before we see another James Cameron film.
 
It should also have no less than 8 Oscar noms (with several wins) so that'll be a boost to get those who haven't seen it in the theaters.

Batutta, Cameron has already been working on a sequel for Avatar, actually 2, he is trying to convince the studio into releasing both of them in the same summer back to back. Dunno if it'll happen, that's 3-4 years of film making for back to back movies but it is an interesting concept.
 
ChipG said:
Batutta, Cameron has already been working on a sequel for Avatar, actually 2, he is trying to convince the studio into releasing both of them in the same summer back to back. Dunno if it'll happen, that's 3-4 years of film making for back to back movies but it is an interesting concept.
Click to expand...

I hope he doesn't go that route, other than the Lord of the Rings films (which is just one big story), the back to back thing hasn't worked out great for others; The Back to the Future sequels, The Matrix sequels, the Pirates sequels.
 
So I watched the Jurassic Park trilogy yesterday and this morning and it got me wondering if some of Avatar's magic has to do with (generational) timing.

Really anyone who was born after, say, 1980 didn't experience much of the original Star Wars trilogy in theatres, and while they may have seen Aliens, T2 and the first Jurassic Park as adolescents, it's really been a long time since one of these very traditional, archetypical stories (ya know, good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, no grays, minimal characterization but lots of big music and well-placed moments to get a rise out of an audience) was in theatres.

Even Pirates, Spiderman, Xmen and Batman have to be taken out of the equation as they don't deal with these archetypes. In most of our big films over the last 15 years or so all the villains have to be considered to be somehow endearing (heck, the heroes in Pirates are actually villains in any other story in western literature).

I was surprised that Avatar didn't make many top ten films of the decade list while much more obtuse, grey-area films succeeded (and why Donnie Darko wasn't there I still don't understand), but as far as audiences matter, I can't help but think that what Avatar is doing more than being a good film (as it's certainly not heralded as a great piece of storytelling or characterization), is that it's either re-introducing 80s storytrelling to a new audience of adolescents and teenagers or it's reminded older folks what movies used to be like in the 80s.

I'd be interested how many people thought Avatar was better than the best of these films -- people who saw those films in theatres.

Aliens? Raiders or Temple of Doom? Any of the original Star Wars films? Jurassic Park? I mean, lol, I remember in Aliens when she came out in that walker -- "Get away from her you b)(&%!" People literally cheered in the theatre. The entire theatre ERUPTED mid-movie. Or the gasped silence of when Luke Skywalker is punishing Vader at the end of Jedi with his lightsaber? Or when people first saw those dinosaurs in JP? E.T.? Really?

I wonder if the nostalgia of Avatar is better than the film itself. And I wonder if the new generation who doesn't know what it was like seeing Goonies or Back to the Future or, heck, even Monster Squad in theatres realizes that they're really just getting a watered-down version of those films that actually shaped culture, both inside movies and outside in the real world.

Is anyone going to walk around using quotes from Avatar to their friends at parties. both jock and nerd alike? Are people going to start dressing like people in Avatar the way everyone needed to wear a life vest after the first Back to the Future? Is there suddenly going to be a rash of Avatar-esque films? THAT'S how you know if a film has really had an impact (the way T2, Aliens, Abyss and Titanic did).

I can remember pretty much every minute of all those 80s films. My sister and I used to speak along with the Star Wars films as we watched them day after day for a few years straight on VHS.

Maybe 15 years from now there will be grown ups who fell asleep watching Avatar everynight for five years straight when they were growing up.

I guess only time will tell what kind of impact Avatar has on our culture, but without the benefit of hindsight, Avatar just doesn't seem that IMPORTANT to people the way all the other films I mentioned were to their audiences, both young and old.
 
You know, you'd think if you were going to write a treatise comparing Avatar to a slew of other iconic films, and discussing its "nostalgia" value compared to those, you might have tried watching it first.
 
David Jimerson said:
You know, you'd think if you were going to write a treatise comparing Avatar to a slew of other iconic films, and discussing its "nostalgia" value compared to those, you might have tried watching it first.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure I asked a question regarding its value compared to the movies I mentioned. I didn't compare it to those movies, I'm asking what people here feel, comparing it to the movies listed.

Seeing Avatar isn't high on my list of things to do in a week, but I am interested in the divide between all the people caught up in the effects and general "awe" and the people who are citing its routine story and flat characters as reasons for dismissing it as simply another CGI spectacle.
 
Chamber005 said:
I'm pretty sure I asked a question regarding its value compared to the movies I mentioned. I didn't compare it to those movies.
Click to expand...

Well, yeah, actually, you did.

Chamber005 said:
I wonder if the nostalgia of Avatar is better than the film itself. And I wonder if the new generation who doesn't know what it was like seeing Goonies or Back to the Future or, heck, even Monster Squad in theatres realizes that they're really just getting a watered-down version of those films that actually shaped culture, both inside movies and outside in the real world.

...

I guess only time will tell what kind of impact Avatar has on our culture, but without the benefit of hindsight, Avatar just doesn't seem that IMPORTANT to people the way all the other films I mentioned were to their audiences, both young and old.
Click to expand...
 
Chamber005 said:
Really anyone who was born after, say, 1980 didn't experience much of the original Star Wars trilogy in theatres, and while they may have seen Aliens, T2 and the first Jurassic Park as adolescents, it's really been a long time since one of these very traditional, archetypical stories (ya know, good vs. evil, right vs. wrong, no grays, minimal characterization but lots of big music and well-placed moments to get a rise out of an audience) was in theatres.
Click to expand...

At risk of getting political, Avatar's wild popularity is probably a case of the right story being told in the right way at the right time. Star Wars came out in the late 70's and re-packaged the political struggles of the 60's (rebellion against authority) into a simple, archetypal hero myth that resonated with audiences, young and old. Add to that an audio-visual experience people had never had seen before and it became a cultural phenomenon. Avatar repackaged the political struggles of this past decade (the corporate/military industrial complex vs resource bearing indigenous populations) into a simple, archetypal hero myth, and told it with an audio visual experience people had never seen before...Or maybe people are just suckers for awesome eye candy, I don't know.
 
My guess is Avatar will grosse $547 mil making it the second highest grossing domestic movie ever and putting Jim at 1 and 2 on that list.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top