Obvious troll is obvious. I'll probably see this movie. What's the quality threshold point for the Internet geeks to decide that a movie deserves to be successful based solely on it's visual effects? In other words, if this movie had a $20 million budget and was directed by a 3rd tier director for the DVD market with the exact same story, would anyone go see it? It will be interesting to see the execution to see if the plot and dialogue really are as cliché as the dialogue we've seen would suggest. Like Lucas and Spielberg, Cameron has always explored the limits of technology in order to explore his personal visions. There are very few producers and directors in Hollywood with the financial muscle to do so. I hope Cameron doesn't make the mistake Lucas did and get so wrapped up in the technology end of it that the rest of the film suffers. This movie needs to make a lot of money to break even, probably half a billion dollars worldwide once marketing and distribution get a cut if the budget for the actual movie production itself is in fact $300 million. While there is a precedent for a Cameron film making more than that amount of money, his average box office take is $79,000,000 not adjusted for inflation. The reasonable expectation for a Cameron film that doesn't star Leonardo DiCaprio and make ten million mothers and daughters from New York to Hong Kong over see it ten times each is about $200-300,000,000 I'd think. He'll probably also license out a lot of the tech they used to make the movie in order to recoup some of the costs to the production company as well.
Yeah, and that was not the first movie with "that exact plot" either... Or perhaps you can be more specific? Which movie? "Delgo"? "Battle For Terra"? Something else? And what part of their plots was the "exact same plot"?
Yes it is Dancing with Wolves in Space...but that doesnt bother me in the slightest. For some reason I just people don't grasp the amount of revolutionary work that was put into this film, and the technology they had to create to make it.
Troll my ass. The movie looks like crap. Put a pillow over your head and hum real loud if you don't want to see another opinion.
I never said anything about the quality of the story, but to say that the imagery looks like something made in 1999 suggests you're blind.
Sigh. For the last time, if there's a problem with the aliens it's with their cartoonish design. NOT the CGI itself. It's surprising to me that there are scifi fans out there who still don't know the difference...
Amen brother. They should be screaming at the production designers and art team, not Cameron and his CGI guys.
I get not blaming the CGI guys, but if the aliens have a cartoonish design, that's generally the vision of the director, particularly a big visionary one like Cameron. That's the style he wanted. These people don't just design things in a vacuum and do whatever they want. The art team and designers are carrying out his vision on his orders, and change it based on what he says.
When I go watch a movie, I want it to be entertaining. I couldn't care less how the movie was made as long as it was made for entertainment. That's the reason why Land of the Lost and Terminator Salvation were stupid flops but District 9 and Paranormal Activity wiped the floor with audience appreciation. People want their 12 bucks worth, they don't care how it was made worthy.
Im just saying there is a lot put into this film that the people who are critiquing the CG don't realize is quite revolutionary. I think the issue with the CG isnt the CG, but the lighting. Let me explain. In the shots of the Navi in normal daylight, they look pretty convincing, and Im sure that these are not the final shots. Even the upgrade in CG and compositing quality between this trailer and the first one is pretty significant. The issues I have are the shots at night, when they are standing in the bioluminescent forest. I honestly think that the CG and and lighting is TECHNICALLY right. Things are how they would be be. However, it's because we don't have a comparable enviroment on earth, to compare that look to in our minds, we look upon these images as if they look terrible. I really think its in the mind. Since it couldn't possibly be done in reality, people look at it and it screams CG, even though they technically may be correct.
I think it's absolutely hilarious that everyone is complaining about this being Dances With Wolves in space. I mean, even before Titanic, when Cameron was universally revered, people still criticized him for his writing. You guys thought this was gonna' be friggin' Shakespeare? Cameron captures compelling nuance and visceral action and mixes it with a little bit of character grace. That's what he's always done, he's the best at it, and no one else has ever seemed able to make what are essentially adventure movies with the same kind of technical mastery and flair that he does. And it looks like he's done it again...even if the story isn't fucking Mamet.
I could care less how revolutionary the CG is claimed to be. If the story doesn't interest me and the characters don't excite me then its all for nothing. By choosing a tired old theme for the movie that has been done to death the characters HAD BETTER grab my attention. The AVATARs are there JUST to show off the CG. This story has been told without the "revolutionary" CG before and won Oscars which means the man whose big credits include other cliche's like a "love story" or "monster(cyborg) terroizes family" better put such a spin on this that I give two shits about it. I'm barely at one shit as of now. James Cameron is Michael Bay without the shakey cam and extreme close ups. Seriously his films have the same amount of depth and outside Titanic have done about the same(individually). Cameron to date scores $1.1 Billion at the B.O. or $163K per film(with Titanic factored in) Bay to date scores $1.4 Billion at the B.O. or $186K per film Bay gets hammered, Cameron gets lauded when their story premises are equally as challenging. The Cameron love amazes me really. He'll need Avatar to do mega well just to catch up to Bay.
You lost me when you compared James Cameron...to Michael Bay. One has made modern classics...Aliens, Terminator, The Abyss, T2, and Titanic...the other has made Pearl Harbor and fucking Transformers. I cannot figure how the hell someone could compare the characterizations and drama in Cameron films, to something from Michael Bay. You say you don't get the Cameron love? Thats why he is loved, and Michael Bay films are just considered popcorn fluff, because he can mix drama, characterization, and action, and he is a master at all three. Bay can direct a big action film, but he can't do characterization the way Cameron can. And since you claim the only reason the Avatar's are in this movie to show off the CG...he wrote the script freaking 15 years ago, and waited until the technology was good enough to pull of his vision. T'Baio perfectly said BTW.
I can't help but notice you've got comic book characters in your avatar. I'm sick to death of those movies, I really am, and I notice a rather noticeable lack of planetary romances in cinema (depending on how I define it, there hasn't been any in almost half a decade, or maybe there are only a handful of films in this subgenre ever made). And it just strikes me odd that a lot of people online I've seen mock the aliens seem completely fine with superheroes wearing their preposterous spandex costumes. Blue-skinned aliens get panned as smurfs, but an alien can look like Cary Grant and wear spanking red underpants and he's Serious Business. This isn't a counter-criticism, but a value judgement, I guess: I'm psyched for Avatar not because I'm thinking it's going to be any good, but because the film is frighteningly close to what are things I want to see in movies, such a whole exploration of how an alien planet works and its weird critters and so on. A film with a beautiful alien girl who jumps off a cliff and lands onto a giant monster? It's like when James Cameron wrote the script in 1995 he was cribbing stuff from my vivid childhood dreams of what the most awesome movie ever would be like. I disagree. And I'm not a big fan of him or anything, but the point is, Cameron knows how to direct an action sequence and he also knows how to pace a movie so that it isn't boring. I honestly didn't care for Titanic much, but even at three hours or so it isn't really a dull picture. Likewise, Aliens is quite honestly a better movie then anything I've seen Bay do, and quite likely better than anything Bay is capable of doing.
THIS... I agree with completely. If someone would have created a "describe your ideal Sci-Fi flick" thread before I saw any of this Avatar stuff, I'm betting a lot my points would be stuff that is in Avatar. These kinds of "world building" and space opera Sci-FI movies are my favorites.
different trailer- be warned this trailer is long and practically reveals the whole storyline. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y35kq3H0ISc&feature=player_embedded I think the detail of the CGI is amazing but I honestly cant say it looks realistic to me, its not just the design, some of the navi/avs movements are very stiff and the navi & other creatures look so glossy. I think the environments looks more realistic.
This will be like Dances with Wolves on Felucia from Star Wars. Oh man I can't even tell you you how much I love that scenario. I always wanted to see more of a planet like that, and now James Cameron will show us more. Did anybody notice the brief clip of Zoe Saldana saying she is happy to be part of something that is truly revolutionary in cinema. So the haters opinions are absolutly worthless to me.