james cameron's AVATAR in 3-D

[MrBern]

Well since TITANIC, James Cameron has sort of been like George Lucas, after Return of the Jedi...he dropped off for years refining technology for future film projects. Lucas worked on the CGI that gave us a battling Yoda.
Cameron has been working with 3-D technology.

Next movie is AVATAR. Sigourney Weaver & Zoe Saldana are in it.
And a 'trailer' was jsut debuted.

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/the-avatar-trailer-what-did-we-just-see/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avatar_(2009_film)

An Avatar trailer:
http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/avatar/hd/

 

[Lady Day]

Interesting.
That may be a reason why Avatar: The Last Airbender (the new M Knight Shyamalan film) was changed to 'The Last Airbender'. Or not.

LD

 

[MrBern]

another 3-D

Ive read that he's working on a live action anime movie, BATTLE ANGEL, also in 3-D. If the two movies are successful, he'll do a trilogy.

And theres hopes he'll go back to making Terminator movies...

 

[Steve]

Initial reviews from Avatar Day are saying that Cameron has finally brought 3D cinema to the place where its aim should have always been to be. No longer just a vehicle for stuff to fly out of the screen; word is that it based around bringing textures and depth to the image, similar to what was done in the 3D version of Up.

 

[Lady Day]

Ive seem clips of this online, and it looks nice, but I dont know how Im suppose to be impressed. To me the camera work just looks like its meant to mimic a reality tv show. From this process of 3D that everyone keeps talking about, it seems the real experience is if you are the actor acting in the 3D world. [huh]

As far as story goes, and Im prolly be the only one to think Cameron is a weak storyteller. He can nail a premise, but the actual story is always milquetoast. I love movies that create fictional cultures, and Im curious to see what happens with that, but I read one review that called it 'Pocahontas meets Fern Gully'. I would hope its not *that* simplistic.

Maybe I have it wrong, but what I cant wrap my head around is the soldier being in a wheelchair. I mean its obvious that since he cant walk, he is going to stay in his avatar body and save that world from the men who want to take it over, but you mean to tell me that in a time when they can splice human and alien DNA to create a host body for the human conciseness to be transfered into, that they cant get that guy some legs? lol

I hope they explain that, quickly.

LD

 

[Chasseur]

'Pocahontas meets Fern Gully'. I would hope its not *that* simplistic.

Maybe I have it wrong, but what I cant wrap my head around is the soldier being in a wheelchair. I mean its obvious that since he cant walk, he is going to stay in his avatar body and save that world from the men who want to take it over, but you mean to tell me that in a time when they can splice human and alien DNA to create a host body for the human conciseness to be transfered into, that they cant get that guy some legs?

I hope they explain that, quickly.

You know I was excited about this movie until I heard the plot... And your above comments really express all my thoughts much better than I could articulate them... Yeah it does remind me of Fern Gully...

 

[mike]

I wish they took the technology and put it to the John Carter of Mars storyline instead of whatever content they cooked up here.

But you know what they say about wishing...

I wish you was a wishing well. So that I could tie a bucket to ya and sink ya.

 

[Smithy]

I saw this last night in 3-D on the Xtremescreen at Melbourne Central and was quite simply stunned.

Now I am not usually a sci-fi fan but this is visually incredible. Certainly the story line is a tad predictable but this is so groundbreaking in terms of how it looks that I didn't even care and to be honest thoroughly enjoyed it.

Seriously go and see this just for the visual feast that it is but make sure you see it in 3-D and preferably on the big IMAX/Xtremescreen.

I've never seen anything like it. My wife said the same.

 

[Wally_Hood]

I wish they took the technology and put it to the John Carter of Mars storyline instead of whatever content they cooked up here.

But you know what they say about wishing...

I wish you was a wishing well. So that I could tie a bucket to ya and sink ya.

I used to try and track down news about the John Carter film; is it still on for production?

 

[mike]

I used to try and track down news about the John Carter film; is it still on for production?

Only the Shadow knows! lol

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

As far as story goes, and Im prolly be the only one to think Cameron is a weak storyteller. He can nail a premise, but the actual story is always milquetoast.

Not surprising. It seems that Cameron is something of a borderline plagiarizer. In his last blockbuster Titanic, many of the significant story elements appears to have been borrowed from a 1979 film called Somewhere In Time which starred Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour.

 

[Nighthawk]

Not surprising. It seems that Cameron is something of a borderline plagiarizer. In his last blockbuster Titanic, many of the significant story elements appears to have been borrowed from a 1979 film called Somewhere In Time which starred Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour.

Let's not forget The Terminator:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwyyJ3D3g1E

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

many of the significant story elements appears to have been borrowed from a 1979 film called Somewhere In Time

Titanic vs. Somewhere In Time lol

Setting:
Both take place in 1912

Heroines
Titanic: Rose (Kate Winslet) later becomes an actress.
Somewhere in Time: Elise McKenna (Jane Seymour) is a famous actress in 1912

It should also be noted that in Titanic Kate Winslet does bear a vague resemblance to a young Jane Seymour.

Villains
Titanic: Jealous, possessive fiancé aided and abetted by heroine's ambitious, social-climbing mother.
Somewhere in Time: Jealous, possessive manager aided and abetted by heroine's ambitious stage mother.

Ending (Spoiler Warning):
Titanic: Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) dies but is eventually reunited with Rose in a Go-to-the-Light dream(?) sequence.
Somewhere In Time: Richard Collier (Christopher Reeve) dies and is reunited with Elise McKenna in a similar scene.

 

[John in Covina]

Evil Country with Evil Industrialists use Evil Military (with Evil Science and Evil Machines) to Crush Native inhabitants of peaceful idylic enviornment.

Dances With Wolves in Space?

 

[mike]

Let's not forget The Terminator:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwyyJ3D3g1E

Arnold, who?

 

[Son_of_Atropos]

I haven't seen it but I heard that the plot is Dances with Wolves as a sci-fi picture. From what I have seen, I am not too impressed with Avatar. It just seems like a typical Hollywood movie but with better special effects which is just a continuation of the Hollywood m.o. in this decade.

fftopic: For me, CGI is destroying movies.

 

[Red Diabla]

I haven't seen it but I heard that the plot is Dances with Wolves as a sci-fi picture. From what I have seen, I am not too impressed with Avatar. It just seems like a typical Hollywood movie but with better special effects which is just a continuation of the Hollywood m.o. in this decade.

fftopic: For me, CGI is destroying movies.

CGI just makes bad movies more expensive. Bad movies have always been made, but it does seem that it's gotten worse in the past 10-15 years in particular.

HOWEVER, back to Avatar...

I didn't care about it before the film opened one iota despite the fact my husband worked on it. I'm not a big Cameron fan, not a sci-fi fan, not a Dances With Wolves/Ferngully/Delgo/whatever story influence you can conjure up fan.

But from the instant Avatar started, I was riveted. Quite simply, it's an EPIC film. I was totally engrossed, and that's a RARE thing. I'm one of those people who nod off during most movies, but not during this one.

Is it the perfect movie? No, but Cameron did something right with this one. It's a helluva lot better than Titanic, so I hope it makes more money than Titanic did.

RD

 

[MrBern]

I used to try and track down news about the John Carter film; is it still on for production?

Wasnt Jon Favreau working on that til it got shelved? So he banged out Iron Man instead. Now he'll be busy with the sequel.
Im not sure if anyone else took up the Mars project.

A shame, I liked some of the retro sci-fi that Favreau did for Zathura.

 

[MrBern]

Snow thwarts box office?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/movies/21box.html

‘Avatar’ Is No. 1 but Without a Record

analysts expected “Avatar” to sail past previous December behemoths.

Instead it placed behind pictures like “I Am Legend,” which opened to $77.2 million in 2007, and “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,” which in 2002 opened to $86.5 million after adjusting for inflation.

The reason may have been an enormous winter storm that pummeled the East Coast on Saturday.

There is also evidence that a shortage of 3-D theaters depressed opening results. Fox had hoped to have hundreds of additional 3-D locations available, but the credit crunch and industry squabbling has delayed technology upgrades.

Audiences seem to have swallowed Fox’s message that this is a film that should be seen in 3-D. Imax theaters — 179 in North America and 58 overseas — broke sales records, with every theater selling out. One signal of how “Avatar” could perform going forward: One Imax theater in London has already sold $1 million worth of tickets, $800,000 of which is for the weeks ahead.

 

[MrBern]

pol-fi?

BTW, I did see AVATAR in 3D. I'd be curious to see it on an IMAX screen, maybe in a few weeks. Actually I dont like going to the movies to watch the same movie over & over, but then thats the allure of a well done movie on this new specialty format.

Enjoyable movie. Its interesting to see Cameron's sci-fi style back on the big screen. I enjoyed the CGI alien utopia that borders on fairytale jungle utopia. And its fun to see the updates of the hi-tech Marines that we all saw back in ALIENS 20 years ago. Funny, most of them dont seem to wear helmets, jsut breathing masks. Theres also the motiffs from DanceswithWolves, MedicineMan, Braveheart, Last of the Mohicans , etc that illustrate a peaceful indigenous population beset upon by whats essentially white imperialism.
But thats the grand thing about sci-fi, we can enjoy the spectacle of the sciencefantasy without arguing the politics.

It will be interesting if this movie will be sold as some sort of 3-D BlueRay that we could enjoy at home.