James Cameron's Avatar - General

I went to see Avatar this afternoon with my friends. The story is pretty basic and has certainly been done before in a similar vein, but as a visual spectacle and for pure entertainment value, I couldn't find too many faults. The CGI is amazing, its hard to believe that Cameron has managed to create an entire world. The Naive facial expressions are very realistic and showed true emotion at times. Especially liked the dust and ash motes flying around, the sun's rays moving over the vegetation and the Tree of Souls flying seeds that fitted in perfectly for the Christmas season. The 3-D was more subtle than I thought it would be but definitely enhanced the viewing experience. Music by James Horner was haunting, evocative and matched the film's mood very well. One fly in the ointment at the end: what were they doing letting the humans just leave? I can imagine that nasty little company man hitting the nuke button as soon as they reached orbit.

This movie is awesome.

[QUOTE=Bruno;19284961]The CGI is amazing, its hard to believe that Cameron has managed to create an entire world. The Naive facial expressions are very realistic and showed true emotion at times. Especially liked the dust and ash motes flying around, the sun's rays moving over the vegetation and the Tree of Souls flying seeds that fitted in perfectly for the Christmas season.[/QUOTE] Why does everyone give James Cameron credit for what a team full of designers and animators worked for years to create? I'm not saying the world is even all that interesting (most of it is just remixes of shit we have here on earth) but James Cameron does not deserve credit for it. He gave the basic details to a team of people who built the world. He doesn't know shit about animating. [QUOTE=Bruno;19284961]Music by James Horner was haunting, evocative and matched the film's mood very well.[/quote] The only "haunting" thing about the music is that it was basically a carbon-copy ghost of the music in every other film that James Horner worked on.

I'd say the real haunting thing will be when Brett Ratner or Micheal Bay imitate Cameron.

"[b]When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like "Avatar"?[/b]" [url]http://io9.com/5422666/when-will-white-people-stop-making-movies-like-avatar[/url] Good article about the not-so-subtle racism in Avatar.

[QUOTE=Warren Holzem;19284841]No. He was cartoonish in every possible way and seemed more like a G.I. Joe villain than a real human being. Stop stalling and tell us what you thought was so "deep" about Gen. Scars McEvil.[/quote] What about him makes him so G.I. Joe villain to you, I ask? Is he evil for the sake of being evil, as most Saturday morning villains tend to be? I think not, and here's why (spoiler alerts, kinda): [sp]Remember the speech he gave the new arrivals? About how Pandora is dangerous and blah blah blah? Consider that Quaritch is a career military man: he thoroughly enjoys his job and the sense of invincibility that surviving many conflicts has bestowed upon him. Many soldiers don't care for the horrors of war, but a few enjoy the thrill of the kill, such as Quaritch here. He thought he was unstoppable, and held great pride in withstanding what he believed was the worst kind of hell any man could go through short of hell itself (this is evident in how he handles many situations, such as kicking down the door seperating him from an unbreathable atmosphere, and merely holding his breath, as well as when he strapped himself into his AMP suit and saw the fact that he was on fire as a mere annoyance). When he arrived on Pandora, he thought nothing of the planet but as another obstacle he had to contend with... Until he got his little "souvenir". Those scars on his face are a testiment that he's not nearly as indestructible as he thought he was, and so he has a sort of vendetta against the planet that showed him up. He hated every living thing on Pandora because the planet destroyed his pride.[/sp] Or perhaps I'm looking way too much into it, but I'd rather than than not at all. It's more fun to me this way. [quote]1.) The fog broke when they got to the mountains. Which is how we were able to see them.[/quote] The weather systems on/around the Tepuis are likewise unstable like that. It'll foggy as fuck one instant, then clear for 10 seconds, then fog again, then clear for hours, then rain, then clear, then more rain, etc. Granted they did stay fairly clear for quite some time in the movie, particularly the battle scene, which it might've added to the suspense a tad if they had to fight in fog. But then again with a battle like that most people want to see everything that's going on, and it wouldn't be quite as suspenseful if the humans kept crashing into the mountains instead of fighting. [quote]2.) Angel falls requires an enormous plateau rain forest to act as a condenser to collect enough water to keep it going. The floating mountains had bigger waterfalls on small mountains that clearly did not have enough vegetation to collect enough condensation to produce that much water. [/QUOTE] I'll just assume you're an expert in ecosystems and leave you to your little world then. Tepuis have little to no vegetation on top of them, contrary to what you saw in "Up".

[QUOTE=Bruno;19284961]One fly in the ointment at the end: what were they doing letting the humans just leave? I can imagine that nasty little company man hitting the nuke button as soon as they reached orbit.[/QUOTE] Does he have a 'nuke' button? Plus, they need the resources on the planet. Destroying the resources, by nuking everything, helps them how? Unless they are totally insane, and are willing to destroy what they so desperately need just because they got their asses kicked. Wouldn't it make more sense to leave peacefully, let things cool down, they try again but FRIENDLY this time? edit: The aliens would almost certainly know what weapons the humans had, Jake would have told them. Plus killing every last human probably isn't their way anyways. They aren't big into killing remember? Even when it's necessary they regret it.

And there we go. I assume it's being closed now? Btw, they would need a pretty big nuke to wipe out the planet.

[QUOTE=Zero-Point;19285280]What about him makes him so G.I. Joe villain to you, I ask? Is he evil for the sake of being evil, as most Saturday morning villains tend to be? I think not, and here's why (spoiler alerts, kinda): [sp]Remember the speech he gave the new arrivals? About how Pandora is dangerous and blah blah blah? Consider that Quaritch is a career military man: he thoroughly enjoys his job and the sense of invincibility that surviving many conflicts has bestowed upon him. Many soldiers don't care for the horrors of war, but a few enjoy the thrill of the kill, such as Quaritch here. He thought he was unstoppable, and held great pride in withstanding what he believed was the worst kind of hell any man could go through short of hell itself (this is evident in how he handles many situations, such as kicking down the door seperating him from an unbreathable atmosphere, and merely holding his breath, as well as when he strapped himself into his AMP suit and saw the fact that he was on fire as a mere annoyance). When he arrived on Pandora, he thought nothing of the planet but as another obstacle he had to contend with... Until he got his little "souvenir". Those scars on his face are a testiment that he's not nearly as indestructible as he thought he was, and so he has a sort of vendetta against the planet that showed him up. He was going to kill Pandora before it killed him.[/sp} Or perhaps I'm looking way too much into it, but I'd rather than than not at all. It's more fun to me this way.[/QUOTE] This is still cartoonish as shit. What subtlety is there about him? What depth of character or conviction? He is violent for the sake of violence, militaristic for the sake of militarism. He is an utterly one-dimensional character whose sole motivation is to do violence. He's so fucking single-minded that he even lacks basic self-preservation instincts, and instead of running away to fight another day, just keeps rushing forwards to his inevitable doom. [QUOTE=Zero-Point;19285280]The weather systems on/around the Tepuis are likewise unstable like that. It'll foggy as fuck one instant, then clear for 10 seconds, then fog again, then clear for hours, then rain, then clear, then more rain, etc. Granted they did stay fairly clear for quite some time in the movie, particularly the battle scene, which it might've added to the suspense a tad if they had to fight in fog. But then again with a battle like that most people want to see everything that's going on, and it wouldn't be quite as suspenseful if the humans kept crashing into the mountains instead of fighting.[/QUOTE] If you're admitting that they just did shit because it looked cool and didn't bother to think about it, why are you arguing with me? [QUOTE=Zero-Point;19285280]I'll just assume you're an expert in ecosystems and leave you to your little world then. Tepuis have little to no vegetation on top of them, contrary to what you saw in "Up".[/QUOTE] Feel free to look this one up before attacking me, why don't you? Feel free to make an ass out of yourself by assuming I'm referencing "Up" and didn't do a basic Google search about Angel Falls before commenting. I Googled the actual not-in-a-cartoon Angel Falls, and everything I read about it says there's hella vegetation on top. What proof do you have that there isn't any?

[b][url=http://www.facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=728368]Old thread[/url][/b] got locked for too many posts. So here's the new one. Also people requested I post the link to the original script. So here it is: [url]http://chud.com/articles/articles/21969/1/PROJECT-880-THE-AVATAR-THAT-ALMOST-WAS/Page1.html[/url] NOW NOMINATED FOR 9 ACADEMY AWARDS: Picture Director Editing Cinematography Art Direction Visual Effects Sound Sound Editing Original Score No way it'll beat hurt locker for director or picture, but it's most likely gonna grab everything else. Maybe not original score though. Saw the midnight showing in 3D imax. Fucking hell that was awesome. The 3-D was just what they said it would be, [b]mind-blowingly awesome.[/b] I would absolutely love to see more movies made like that. The way you could actually focus your eyes on different stuff on the screen was really cool, simply amazing. I can't get over how awesome that shit was. By far the best looking film I've ever seen. [highlight]SEE IT IN 3D. IT REALLY MAKES THE FILM THAT MUCH MORE AWESOME.[/highlight] The movie itself was also really enjoyable. I got over how goofy the aliens looked after about 10 minutes. There's also a few really corny parts, stuff that made some of the people in the theater laugh, but it's still a really fucking fun movie, and the 3-D just makes you enjoy it that much more. This really is a movie that has to be seen in theaters, and in 3-D. Can't wait to see it again. BOX OFFICE REPORT: In about 3 days it covered the production budget of $237 Million for the film. It took the film about 1 and a half weeks to surprass Twilight 2 It take the film about 2 weeks to surpass Transformers 2 It took the film 17 days to make over $1,000,000,000 and grab the rank of fourth highest grossing film wolrdwide It took the film 20 days to become the second highest grossing film wordwide, second only to James Cameron's previous film, Titanic. It took the film 38 days to overtake titanic's foreign box office record It took the film 39 days to become the highest grossing film worldwide, beating Titanic's record of $1.84 billion. It took the film 45 days to make over $2 billion. It took the film 47 days to surpass Titanic's US box office record of $600 million. It took the film 73 days to make $2.5 billion. [b][url]www.avatarmovie.com[/url][/b] After a 12 year break from Hollywood, [b][url=http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000116/]James Cameron,[/url][/b] the guy behid Aliens, Terminator, the Abyss, and Titanic is making a comeback with a film he’s apparently been working on for ages, but was unable to make due to technology apparently not being good enough to make it right. Writter, director, and producer James Cameron describes the story as “a futuristic tale set on a planet 200 years hence [...] an old-fashioned jungle adventure with an environmental conscience [that] aspires to a mythic level of storytelling “ and a press release explained it futher “Avatar is also an emotional journey of redemption and revolution. It is the story of a wounded ex-marine, thrust unwillingly into an effort to settle and exploit an exotic planet rich in biodiversity, who eventually crosses over to lead the indigenous race in a battle for survival” It's written entirely by Cameron, who previously wrote the terminator films as well as Aliens. What’s interested me the most about this movie is the incredible amount of effort they’re putting into it. Here’s a summary of what’s gone into this movie: 1. They’re making their own ‘alien language and culture’ for the film to make it more authentic. The detail they're putting into the language is incredible. Wikipedia copy-paste: [b][url=http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20007998,00.html]"Working with Paul Frommer, linguist and Director of the Center for Management Communication at USC, he developed a whole language and culture for the Na'vi, the indigenous race on Pandora"[/url][/b] 2. The music will be done by James Horner, the guy that made the music to Aliens and Terminator, who will be “[b]also working with Wanda Bryant, an ethnomusicologist, to create a music culture for the alien race[/b]” 3. As well as the music and the language, they’re also getting Neville Page, the guy that made the [b][url=http://moviechutzpah.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/hasbro_cloverfield_monster_toy_1.jpg]cloverfield monster[/url][/b] and the [b][url=http://www.cinemaspy.ca/img/user/StarTrek_icemonster-thumb-580x408-16691.jpg]star trek[/url][/b] ice monster to create all the monsters for the movie, which is pretty rad. 4. When it comes to Imax it's going to [b][url=http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/05/19/imax-considers-3-month-run-for-james-camerons-avatar/] have 3 months of screen time on the IMAX screen,[/url][/b] while other films like Star Trek only got 2 weeks. 5. The big one: Cameron will be introducing a new method of filming he’s created that involves the use of [b]two HD cameras strapped into one big camera[/b], for the purpose of creating depth perception. This system is called the Reality Camera System. Here's a video about the camera. Thanks to itchybarracuda for finding it. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2squ9HDuBeI[/media] The film will be in IMAX 3D, and "Cameron expects 'Avatar' to be about 60% CG animation, based on characters created using a newly developed performance capture-based process, and 40% live action, with a lot of VFX in the imagery." He's said that "It’s not with a single CGI character, like King Kong or Gollum." but does have photo-realistic CG characters. Trailer [hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LQkTQ1foSU[/hd] MOVIES COMING SOON USING THE AVATAR 3D CAMERAS: Tron Legacy Resident Evil 4 Jackass 3 Ghostbusters 3 Gremlins 3 Also apparently clash of the titans and the upcoming harry potter are going to be edited to be in 3D like avatar.

Sure was a film.

Amazing movie, a must see.

In Avatar they didn't even establish defined characters, theres a male and female lead, and a bad guy. The rest of the cast are various multi-3d illuminous shades of nothing in the background (/foreground/mid-field).

Original script is far better.

[QUOTE=Zero-Point;19285280]What about him makes him so G.I. Joe villain to you, I ask? Is he evil for the sake of being evil, as most Saturday morning villains tend to be? I think not, and here's why (spoiler alerts, kinda): [sp]Remember the speech he gave the new arrivals? About how Pandora is dangerous and blah blah blah? Consider that Quaritch is a career military man: he thoroughly enjoys his job and the sense of invincibility that surviving many conflicts has bestowed upon him. Many soldiers don't care for the horrors of war, but a few enjoy the thrill of the kill, such as Quaritch here. He thought he was unstoppable, and held great pride in withstanding what he believed was the worst kind of hell any man could go through short of hell itself (this is evident in how he handles many situations, such as kicking down the door seperating him from an unbreathable atmosphere, and merely holding his breath, as well as when he strapped himself into his AMP suit and saw the fact that he was on fire as a mere annoyance). When he arrived on Pandora, he thought nothing of the planet but as another obstacle he had to contend with... Until he got his little "souvenir". Those scars on his face are a testiment that he's not nearly as indestructible as he thought he was, and so he has a sort of vendetta against the planet that showed him up. He was going to kill Pandora before it killed him.[/sp] Or perhaps I'm looking way too much into it, but I'd rather than than not at all. It's more fun to me this way.[/QUOTE] This is still cartoonish as shit. What subtlety is there about him? What depth of character or conviction? He is violent for the sake of violence, militaristic for the sake of militarism. He is an utterly one-dimensional character whose sole motivation is to do violence. He's so fucking single-minded that he even lacks basic self-preservation instincts, and instead of running away to fight another day, just keeps rushing forwards to his inevitable doom. [QUOTE=Zero-Point;19285280]The weather systems on/around the Tepuis are likewise unstable like that. It'll foggy as fuck one instant, then clear for 10 seconds, then fog again, then clear for hours, then rain, then clear, then more rain, etc. Granted they did stay fairly clear for quite some time in the movie, particularly the battle scene, which it might've added to the suspense a tad if they had to fight in fog. But then again with a battle like that most people want to see everything that's going on, and it wouldn't be quite as suspenseful if the humans kept crashing into the mountains instead of fighting.[/QUOTE] If you're admitting that they just did shit because it looked cool and didn't bother to think about it, why are you arguing with me? [QUOTE=Zero-Point;19285280]I'll just assume you're an expert in ecosystems and leave you to your little world then. Tepuis have little to no vegetation on top of them, contrary to what you saw in "Up".[/QUOTE] Feel free to look this one up before attacking me, why don't you? Feel free to make an ass out of yourself by assuming I'm referencing "Up" and didn't do a basic Google search about Angel Falls before commenting. I Googled the actual not-in-a-cartoon Angel Falls, and everything I read about it says there's hella vegetation on top. What proof do you have that there isn't any?

Yes, the original script was by far much better. But I liked the movie.

shit was tight

Best fucking film i've ever seen.

Added a poll for an easier way to say what you think about it. 10 options was maximum though, so I couldn't put a 1 or a 0.

wait holy shit RE4 is coming?

Tron Legacy in 3D :awesome:

[QUOTE=jcallan;19285558]Tron Legacy in 3D :awesome:[/QUOTE] fuck yeah

[b]"When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like "Avatar"?"[/b] [url]http://io9.com/5422666/when-will-whi...es-like-avatar[/url] Good article about the not-so-subtle racism in Avatar.

I'll just post this B-roll footage as I did in the old thread. [url]http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/avatar/b-roll-i[/url]

I'll sum it up. The story was unoriginal, the characters were not memorable, but the CGI was astounding, and the immersion of Pandora and it's environment is excellent.

Fucking loved it. I've seen it twice already and plan to go again sometime this week.

Good thread postal

[QUOTE=Honkers101;19285585][b]The story was unoriginal, the characters were not memorable, but the CGI was astounding, and the immersion of Pandora and it's environment is excellent.[/b][/QUOTE] This. Cameron is a good director, and whoever Cameron hired to do the CGI is amazing, but he cannot write a script to save his life.

I watched it in 3D, its fucking awesome.

My fucking dick exploded during the final battle. THat was fucking amazing.