That is a fan-made trailer... Cobbled together from the two official trailers and the "vision" featurette. A nice editing job nonetheless. Regarding the CG realism thing... Sure there are a couple of scenes in the trailers that look a bit iffy. Then there are scenes where they just *nail* it, like this picture: http://thefilmstage.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Avatar61.png Some may quibble about the design, but dammit that looks *real* to me. If I didn't know the Navi were CG, I would assume that is some pretty amazing makeup. Hopefully they have some time to tweak the remaining scenes to a similar level. But even if they don't... It hasn't stopped me from enjoying movies up to this point, so why should it now? BTW, this is just a cool image: http://thefilmstage.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Avatar102.png (note the bayonet on the Mech gun)
When sci-fi geeks no longer have an imagination then what can we expect from the general public at large.
It appears you had a visceral response when you read Bay and ceased to try to understand my post. My comment is on how simple the plots are for each director. Neither have had some Sixth Sense, Memento or Usual Suspects type material they worked with. Its mass consumption fare: love stories, action movies, monster movies or a combo of the three. YOU call Cameron's "modern classics", fine I don't even deny they are great films; the stories remain simple though. YOU may not like Transformers, Bad Boys or Pearl Harbor but that doesn't make them trash. Sorry to have to point that out. MILLIONS love Transformers. His other films perform as well or better, on average, with Cameron. So while there are Bay haters its still a vocal minority. Bay is no Uwe Boll. Cameron though is no Spielberg or Scorcesse either and reading things about the web you'd think he was at times. George Lucas had the idea for the prequels 15 years before also and waited till the CG devloped. What exactly is your point? The AVATAR in the script still exists JUST to take advantage of CG technology. The script is about Worthington and others becoming sympathetic to the Blue Elves(not bothering to learn the name right now). Costner and Picard became sympathetic and it didn't require some kickass CG to pull of the characterizations and emotions. CAMERON is strictly on an ego trip to get this CG done for this purpose. Fine by me really but you've not proved a point. Value Judgement? Way to be divissive and use an AVATAR of all things to base such things. Coming from the guy with a 3rd rate Talaxian in his Avatar I'll reserve a for spite counter value judgement to rise above. I like space battles, aliens and intuitive films as well. I enjoy a varied type of film so chill with the value judgements cause I have freaking Spiderman in my avatar. SHEESH! If one pays attention to my post I am indirectly acknowledging that Cameron does a better job with action sequences. I can agree to his pacing as well of a film. His films are still simple Hollywood cliches, he just does them a bit better overall than Bay. That's all I'm saying and yet I've typed out a friggin thesis to help some of you out.
One thought that occurred to me from watching the Japanese trailer is that these characters may have a special appeal to Asian audiences already steeped in anime. I mean, in Japan, the last prime minister, the LDP's Taro Aso, famously expressed being a manga fan. Also, the term "avatar" is, of course, of Hindu origin. Indian audiences might have a particular gravitation to the Navi as well, considering blue-skinned beings already play a prominent role in Hindu mythology. I don't know if James Cameron considered the interests of Asian audiences in this way, and in any event, the more parsimonious explanation may be that many of the film's artists are from that part of the world.
Actually, the animation on those blue cat things looks a little stiff to me. I'm sure they can smooth it out by December, though.
WETA (the primary VFX company for Avatar) are well known for tweaking stuff until the absolute last minute, before they have to start making prints. That was the case for all the LOTR movies, although some of that may be dependent on the directors wishes. Although I suspect Cameron is an even bigger perfectionist than Jackson is.
As I understand it, Cameron wrote the story in 1994, but shelved it until CG developed to the point where you could do photo-realistic aliens. So that seems to me to be pretty analogous to Lucas and the Star Wars prequels.
Pearl Harbor had promise. I think it just suffered from inaccurate expectations. Audiences were expecting another Saving Private Ryan. What they got was the WWII version of Titanic. Actually, James Cameron had the same problem with The Abyss. Audiences were expecting Aliens underwater. Instead, they got the underwater equivalent of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. As for Transformers, there is something deeply wrong with those films, with Michael Bay, and with everyone who likes them. What's worse? The wooden acting? The wildly unstable shifts in tone? The racial charicatures? The inability to ever be able to tell what the hell is going on in any of the action scenes? Or just the fact that these incredibly thin movies are each 2 1/2 hours long?! Scorcesse is overrated. Spielberg hasn't made a truly great movie since Saving Private Ryan in 1998. (Of course, James Cameron hasn't made a movie since Titanic in 1997, so we'll see how his talent has fared in the intervening years.)
So is Usual Suspects. That film has a plot that falls apart if you actually think about it, it's a turn-your-brain off and be entertained by the elaborate plot twists sort of picture, and very definitely mass consumption fare. Before the fans of the picture jump on me, yes I like it, it's an entertaining romp and deftly paced by Singer with some very strong performances, but it's not something that in terms of intelligence or intricate construction deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Memento. I'm terribly pretentious, naturally, but it's a worthwhile point. You dismiss the Na'vi as blue elves, and I find Spider-Man's costume considerably more stupid and preposterous than the blue-skinned aliens in this picture. It's bright blue and red, and that's not because it's his skin colour because he's some kinda alien, he's a teenage vigilante who's painted himself in eye-catching primary colours as he jets about New York. It's laughably moronic and it looks silly. I have the same kneejerk reaction to most of the conventions of American comic book superheroes - extravagant names, rainbow-coloured costumes, the heroes never kill the villains for some reason, and so on. I'm fine with the last of those conventions in, say, Asterix comics because a) I grew up with them and b) they're clearly tongue-in-cheek, which a lot of superheroics are not. Obviously, you forgive and/or ignore the silliness of superhero conventions because you grew up with them and like them, I do the same with this movie because this is very much a genre I unashamedly enjoy. Humanoid aliens are such a strong part of what I've grown up with I'll readily accept the ones in Avatar, which to my geeky eyes actually look really cool (and yes elfin, but that ain't a bad thing either. ) That's what I mean by value judgement. Some people are willing to give superheroes a pass they wouldn't for this material, and while I'm fine with that I like skewering the absurdity of it, while admitting I'm in a sense doing the exact same thing here, but in reverse. Pish! I'm at least second-rate! Point taken, though. The avatar is part of my intentional self-deprecation, if anyone's curious (you're not). I enjoy bloviating for several paragraphs about the most trivial and boring things. It's probably a chore to read, I'll confess.
Here's a new nice TV spot for Avatar: (which emphasizes the action) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXPoQenVQxI&hd=1 Unlike other "fan-made" tv-spots on youtube, this one is official. It contains several new shots.
I wasn't dismissing them offhand. I admitted to being unmotivated to go find their proper name. Blue Elves just came to mind in lieu of opening another window and googling the answer. I never said comics couldn't be silly or their films. I'd argue comics themselves, especially the last 15 or so years, have been anything but silly. Very dark, introspective and morally ambiguous many times. The films themselves can drift into silly or camp at times and your assumption I ignore or dismiss that is incorrect. Emo Peter Parker, blech. Jelly Bean eating Johnny Blaze, eek! Humanoid aliens are what you've grown up with?? This refers to what? Vulcans? E.T.? I like humanoid-esque aliens also and I'm not knocking those who want to see the film. It's just not very deep(based on trailers) and while the CG may be as good as promised that's not a reason I place on my short list of why I go. Was it great that Silver Surfer looked so real in FF:RoSS? Yes. Was it great the Prawns looked so real in District 9, Yes. Those visuals alone were not on the short list of why I went. I keep hearing comments akin to this: One should see this movie if for no other reason than how great the revolutionary CG will be. Heard similar stuff about Final Fantasy 8-9 years ago.
But keeping the conventions I observed. I don't read American comics so I can't comment on them, but at the end of the day The Dark Knight still has a guy called Batman in a big bat-costume fighting a guy called the Joker. That's sorta silly, but I'm willing to roll with it (and it's an excellent movie besides). I'm not saying that comic books should be goofy or get rid of their central conceits - the truth is the middle ground of keeping the comic book ideas and crafting a serious movie around 'em, as Dark Knight did, is a totally legitimate move and completely works. I just reserve the rather snarky right to point out that they're still sorta silly concepts, which I'll gladly concede isn't saying a whole hell of a lot. All of the above. Star Trek, Star Wars, numerous books. Deep Space Nine offhand is probably one of the best examples, as it has around a dozen principal humanoid aliens in major playing parts. Many of these are in fairness a heck of a lot more preposterous than the Na'vi, such as the Gammorreans in Return of the Jedi (the fat snorting greenskined pig guards). The point is as a kid space opera/planetary romance was my preferred fantasy world. It's the one I'm plain most unapologetically attached to. No argument there. If I just thought it'd just have revolutionary CGI I wouldn't want to go. But it's got revolutionary CGI and a nifty sci-fi world that I, personally, like the design of. Quite frankly, even if the CGI isn't as revolutionary as claimed I still just plain like the look of this picture. And I'm a very shallow, visual person for all my rambling pretense. If I didn't like it visually or like the story (which looks okay, but yes it's completely trite) I'd probably have zero interest in this. I am, as observed, not really a Cameron fan. Also, I never went to see Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Screw that noise.
Yeah, I see nothing really new or revolutionary here, although it did look nice. But it is also kind of like watching WOW the movie. The way this project has been promoted made me expect a 'Star Wars' kind of new and revolutionary.
To get this thread back on track (from discussing what director is overrated compared to who)... The Avatar marketing folks have now started releasing TV spots aimed at different demographics: - They released a ACTION oriented spot that showed on Sports networks on Thursday: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXPoQenVQxI&hd=1 - And now they have released an ADVENTURE/3D oriented spot targeted at kids and families: (it showed on the Cartoon Network, believe it or not) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBUJiXErE6E&hd=1 (Ugh for the Disney-ish soundtrack , it also has weird audio sync issues, but shows some more scenes - It is certainly the oddest Tv-spot so far) It looks like they will probably continue to release different kinds of spots for different networks. Not a bad idea, and this is certainly not the first film that this has been done for.
Looks good and isn't the film coming out in 3-D ? However I doubt I will go to the cinema to see it because my X mas flick is going to be Sherlock Holmes but I will catch it on DVD. I have to admit though the PR has been poor and If I was a studio who has just made the most expensive film to date then I would want a PR project closer to the Star Trek level. Too many of the public who aren't internet savvy probably knows nothing about this movie and they need to work on that. I also have to admit a christmas release seems a little strange for such a big budget when its screaming out for a Summer flick to have the legs to make $$$.
I like the different demographic ads. Pretty cool. Except... That cliche "we're not in Kansas any more" line is GRATING on my nerves! Joy