Why no Avatar thread?

Losing your taste for movies where lots of stuff gets blowed up is the first step on the road to limpwristedness.

Could a love for Broadway Musicals be far behind?

carguy123 wrote: I didn't see it in 3D but would have loved to if it was the Disney Polarized version, which I expect it was. Just wait till it comes out in HD and look at it on your TV. You'll be amazed at how obvious the CG was. Isn't it amazing that your TV is now better picture quality than the movie theater. It makes many if not most of the special effects seem contrived and obvious.

It uses a newly created 3-D technology, I believe it is polarized judging from the lenses on the glasses. I will have to test them when I get home. I found the picture to be very clear and crisp. I literally felt like I was on Pandora. There were even a few times I picked up a scent that I wasn't sure was real or imaginary.

Duke wrote:

SVreX wrote: my cousin is the president of FX network

Then can you please get him to TURN DOWN THE FREAKING COMMERCIALS?! It would be a great service to America if you could do so, and it would probably mean more people would watch that channel. As it is I can't stand it. Thank you. Sorry for the OT.

He'd love to.

Regretfully, the industry is finding it impossible to make a profit when their products, which are designed to generate a 15 year income stream are being compressed into needing to attempt to turn a profit in only 6 months thanks to the internet and piracy. For now, you will have to learn to enjoy the commercials. Later, you will have to learn to enjoy Bali-wood productions.

Free isn't really free.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled (and commercially paid for) thread.

be thatasitmay, as long as the ad writers think we... the viewers... are as stupid as they seem to think we are it doesn't matter how loud or soft the commercials are I always use the mute button....

Not too much to add. I enjoyed it. It was fun. It was a spectacle. It was melodramatic.

As for traits of the world. I figured the mountains floated because of trapped gasses or something. The magnetic fields might have been part of it too. It was mentioned that this was a low-gravity planet. Makes sense that they'd have waterfalls if they got significant rain.

As for Sigourney Weaver's face. I noticed, but hadn't thought much about it. Probably her's was cruder because it was the first Avatar they developed. They probably refined it for later ones.

"Unobtanium". That was stupid. I highly suspect Cameron wrote that into the script as a placeholder. "I need some ultra-valuable substance. I don't feel like coming up with a name right now. I'll just call it 'unobtanium' as a placeholder. I'll come up with something real later..."

SupraWes wrote:

I literally felt like I was on Pandora. There were even a few times I picked up a scent that I wasn't sure was real or imaginary.

Oops, you must have been sitting behind me.

How can the CG take you out of the movie, when the CG is what created the movie? That's a blatant case of bias MAKING you come out of it because you don't want to be bothered by actually letting the movie tell the story it's own way.

I also disagree about the 3D not adding anything. It adds massive depth to the larger planetary scenes, especially the pullback shots of the ships coming through the floating mountains, and the moving through the trees. But the real benefit was the feeling that you were not watching something happening on a flat screen, but that you were actually inside that world with them. Maybe the IMAX theater helped that, but the audio positioning, the total immersion in the world was incredible.

I work with 3D CG, and have since '92. I know what state of the art is and this simply pushed it way past what has ever been able to be done before. Not just in computing power (because it takes a LONG time to render out at the resolutions I saw in the IMAX theater) but in the time spent by a lot of real people taking time to really sweat the details of the models and the shaders, and the character rigging. it's what made the planet and creatures/people become real, specifically so the CG did NOT take you out of the movie for looking like the fake part. Cameron obviously said "do whatever it takes, take as much time as you need, because I'll pay you for whatever it takes to make this real."

wow, movie going sure isn't the same thing as it was the last time I was there

ZOO wrote: Three things surprised me. First, I never knew I was attracted to giant blue women with tails. Second, I kept hoping for a "wardrobe" malfunction on said woman, even though she was computer generated and it was NEVER going to happen. Third, how can there be floating mountains, with waterfalls? That is, mountains that hover, but water flows down them?

Oh, there was some nipple. Blue boobies could bring you back into the movie if you were being pulled out.. hehehe

As for the mountains, think about the ore they are trying to mine. the mountains float due to that ore being slightly magnetic and acting like a superconductor on a low gravity planet. So that part of the world, where the instruments in the ships are going crazy, is filled with weird magnetic pulls that only affect the ore in them, not things made of different materials (though the electronics are wigging out) Water, however, is not magnetic, so, like the plants and animals, acts normal.

wbjones wrote: wow, movie going sure isn't the same thing as it was the last time I was there

3D IMAX is not old school movie-going. It is immersion in the world created by the filmmaker. It's one step removed from having it directly in your head like a waking dreamstate.

I've been wanting to see Avatar since I saw the promos, going next week. Possibly by myself, the bride wants to see Nine.

Meet you back in the lobby.

Dan

I understand the movie in an electronic format will occupy 150 gigs.

That's 4 times my hard drive size.

Yes, it was an impressive undertaking.

My girlfriend has started referring to Avatar as "Dances with Banshees".

Heeheee... I called it "Dances with Wolves meets Yessongs"

Seriously, where do I sign up to visit the mother tree and permanently become one of the big blue people? Those pterodactyls were damn cool.

The perfect seamlessness of the graphics just blew me away. Far from glitchy and intrusive, I found that I was completely drawn into the movie (despite the hardly original theme). The characters seemed so real you could almost touch them (notice how their ears swivelled, or lay flat when they were really pissed off?). The "horses' movement was convincing and they had weight.

SVreX wrote: ... my cousin is the president of FX network...

Tell him that if he ever cancels The League, I'm coming after him.

We had a Christmas-day outing to see it. Fabulous. I really identified with the Avatars--I never wanted to leave such a beautiful place. And I guess now I have to add "tree" to the list of movie protagonists I've cried for.

Margie

I think we are going to go try and see it tomorrow.

I loved it too, 3D and all. The fact that we are all comparing the significance of this movie to the significance of Star Wars only a week after it came out is telling. After all Star Wars has been developing its cult status for 32 years.

The gf and I were confused by the unobtainium business too. She thought it was a silly name like everybody else too but I thought it was said sarcastically - like the business guy was doing air quotes with his fingers. So it's not the actual name of the rock but he was saying "unobtainium...ugh" to make his point that it was really hard to get.

spaceships- Check

cool aliens- check

super bad ass villain- check

amazing glowy things- check

land and air battles- check

native American and other tribal influences- check

awesome graphics and 3-d that actually works instead of being just a gimmick - check

That last time i went to a movie that people applauded at the end was probably the original star wars in 1978, until yesterday... The bar on sci fi movies has just been raised to a whole new level...

924guy wrote: cool aliens- check

The humans were the aliens.

924guy wrote: That last time i went to a movie that people applauded at the end was probably the original star wars in 1978, until yesterday... The bar on sci fi movies has just been raised to a whole new level...

Yep, there was applause at the end when I went, too. Not only that, but I don't think I've ever been to a movie where people left the theater for restroom breaks at a dead run--you'd see them whip out during the few moments that passed for lulls in the action or story development (there really were none), then return in record time, still running. I was one of them, and noticed the people were running in the bathroom, too.

Margie

Chris_V wrote: As for the mountains, think about the ore they are trying to mine. the mountains float due to that ore being slightly magnetic and acting like a superconductor on a low gravity planet. So that part of the world, where the instruments in the ships are going crazy, is filled with weird magnetic pulls that only affect the ore in them, not things made of different materials (though the electronics are wigging out) Water, however, is not magnetic, so, like the plants and animals, acts normal.

That could tie in with the little rock "display" on the company man's desk. The base generated a field that made the rock hover.

One thing I'm trying to figure out is, did this take place in the same "universe" as the Aliens films? Perhaps at a different time? You had hypersleep and reference to "the company". I guess it depends on whether it was "The Company", or just a company.

SupraWes wrote: So I went and saw it this weekend expecting to be disappointed, and completely fell in love with it. The story is nothing new, but the storytelling, the acting, and digital rendering of the acting as well as how elaborate the world was completely blew my socks off. The movie must be seen in 3D, I even teared up at a few places, I don't normally get emotionally involved in sc-fi, but this one got me. Am I weird?

yep. it was a thoroughly enjoyable movie. much, much better than i expected.

Salanis wrote: One thing I'm trying to figure out is, did this take place in the same "universe" as the *Aliens* films? Perhaps at a different time? You had hypersleep and reference to "the company". I guess it depends on whether it was "The Company", or just a company.

I hadnt thought about that, it really "could" be a continuation of the Alien movies, just better, much, much better.

the audience applauded at the end of the showing i saw as well. it's been a long time since that has happened at a movie i've been to.

i also noticed a lot of similarities in details w/ the Alien movies. you know Cameron said to himself, "i'm definitely working in the huge ride-in robot things again."

SVreX wrote: The world view was a bit extreme and invasive (the VooDoo tree worshipping went WAAY too far for me)

meh...i don't see much difference between that and most of the world's organized relgions. most seem to have similar ceremonies that differ only in the specific details.