Random Avatar Thoughts

I’ve heard good things about the footage from “Avatar” that many of my friends saw at Comic Con this year. I DID NOT SEE THAT FOOTAGE, so please keep that in mind as you read my random thoughts. Avatar could end up being the best movie of the year… but for now…

1) The trailer that was up for it looked just awful. Like, video game cut scene awful.

2) “Avatar Day” is the most re-fucking-diculous stupid shit I have ever heard of.

That is all.

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89 thoughts on “Random Avatar Thoughts

  1. John what have you been smoking? I thought the “TEASER” was amazing, guys its just a teaser not the actual trailer. John its kind of your fault cause you hyped yourself up cause i know you’re a fan of James Cameron and his movies so you were expecting this movie and the teaser to be amazing and you hyped yourself to the point where you were disappointed. Trust me alot of people are like that the same thing happened to me with Transformers 2

  2. Liked it…. a whole f$cking lot. Really looking forward to this one. IMO, I think that the story will be just as important as any of the effects… it was certainly the case for “The Terminator” and “Titanic”. From what I have seen and read it looks to be a good story which will capture many an imagination and pull on a few heartstrings with a twist of ethics thrown in for good measure

  3. C’mon John… give James Cameron a break. This is his first feature film since Titanic , and Titanic was made 13 years ago (filmed in 1996 and shown December 1997), and Titanic was crucified by critics and Paramount and Fox before it was shown. And when Titanic was released on December 19, 1997, it went on to become the highest grossing film of all time. I think you should reserve your judgment until you’ve seen this film in its entirety.

  4. For a movie that’s being hyped about it’s CGI, it looks a lot like an unspectacular video game. The CGI looks nowhere near as photorealistic as was claimed, and to speak truthfully, I’ve seen better.

  5. Looks pretty cool I’m always up for a new James Cameron film (it’s been awhile). Yes the visuals are not up to par with the hype the backgrounds reminded me too much of Peter Jackson’s King Kong. Not that it’s a bad thing…

  6. This movie looks mindblowing. I will shell out 50 buck to watch it. Yes I will watch it 5 times in theatres.

    Frankly speaking the reason why you find it video gamey is because your eyes can’t handle lot of colour. That is the problem with some people. If I can watch shit movies like TF2 and gi joe then a movie directed by James Cameron is a must see.

  7. Got a chance to see the 15 minute preview. As stated it was pretty mindblowing at times. There are some shots that seriously look like a guy in a latex suit like Abe Sapian sort of but it’s all 100% CGI. It might even look a bit more real because latex suits do have certain look to them and I think the skin on the aliens is incredible. The one thing that kept throwing off the reality was the eyes because they aren’t proportioned like humans. Seriously though like 5 minutes into the footage I didn’t see it anymore. This is the best CG I’ve seen especially for every single thing in the frame being CG. Everyone states Benjiman Button or Davy Jones but they were just 1 single character. Here the screen is simply filled to the brim with effects and most of them do look photo real. It’s extremely impressive. For me the weakest part were a few of the Dragon shots but there were others where I actually felt like I could touch it. So I will admit it’s a tiny bit uneven but it’s much further then I’ve seen movies go before.

    I totally see why the trailer has been disappointing people but trust me the 3D and the size have a lot to do with it. There is SOOOOOO much detail in the skin of the aliens that you just can’t see on a 2 inch big face on a computer screen. Is it safe to lower your expectations a bit from it being 100% real, yes. But it’s not the huge disappointment a lot of people seem to think it is based on the internet trailer. I’d say it’s 90% there personally, they just need to work on the eyes a bit but everything else was incredible.

    1. sorry I wrote so much I forgot to mention the 3D. It’s not 3D like you think of 3D, it’s extremely realistic I would say. By that I mean realistic. Most of the time when you see 3D your aware of it, and I won’t say I wasn’t aware because duh I was seeing a 3D movie with ridiculous looking glasses. But it was pretty close, when I came home I looked at angles of entering rooms and such just to compare. It was weird but the 3D in the footage felt super natural. Nothing jarring. The only part where it was a bit tough was in the jungle chase seen with this like space panther thing. But I think I was a bit too close to the screen so that was the problem. VERY UNGIMMICKY 3D.

  8. Just watched the trailer. The visual effects look amazing and you can tell that James Cameron has gone to alot of effort to bring that to the audience. I don’t know that it will be a great storyline though. I think I would just wait for it to come out on DVD.

  9. Maybe it’s meant to be shown in IMAX. I saw the trailer and it looks like some updated CGI footage from the Star Wars prequels. I was like, “hmmm…,okay.”

  10. I saw the 16 minute footage in a IMAX theater earlier today. All I can say is HOLY FUCKING SHIT. My jaw was on the floor the whole time. And judging by the reaction from everybody else in the theater I would say they had the same emotion. The applause that the footage got could be heard from the highest mountain top. UNFUCKING BELIEVABLE.

    1. I mean i thought the trailer was awesome, and i liked the CG in some shots, but some just looked straight up dumb. Most likely, Cameron wanted to use so much CG, it turned out to look fake.

      At one point in the trailer I wondered “Is this supposed to be a kids film

  11. AGREED SO FUCKING MUCH JOHN.

    My friend got tickets to Avatar Day for the IMAX in Charlotte, three hours from his place, and asked if I wanted to come. Why sure, I’d LOVE to drive three fucking hours there and three fucking hours back, burn all my gas and stand in line to watch 15 fucking minutes of footage. Are people really this nutty?

    1. You should have caught a flight Queenie, sounds like it would have been more convenient.

      My screening was 3/5 full despite the fact that all the tickets were sold (still trying to figure that one out) and cronies from Fox kept shoving cameras in my face. It was like being part of a focus group or something.

      If I didn’t write for a website then I wouldn’t have done it but I’m glad I did. I have a feel for the film now. I’m sold on the technology part of it. Now I’ll just be optimistic about getting a great story.

  12. Write Comment here. Before you do, review these rules:
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    To me having a playstation 3 with HD 1080 samsung tv, the trailer that I saw did see look like a video game edit part of the video game. Not the gameing part but part of the game where it shows you little movies. Just my 2 cents.

  13. wasnt wowed by the apple trailer.
    the design of the blue aliens look like a japanese anime design to me.
    very lame.
    im most disappointed that cameron doesnt have a part playing a wandering tourist with a camera who just keeps showing up in scenes throughout the movie.
    that would rock.

  14. Because it is more popular to hate on something that is hyped instead of getting into it. Getting into it makes you part of the “regular masses” instead of an intellectual… just a thought on why people are hating on it lol

  15. Have we really become so spoiled that we can’t suspend reality for a few hours to enjoy a movie. Look at some great 80’s movies. Tron, oww wel those sceneries and bikes don’t look real. Boo Hoo, Generally people pick apart things scene by scene, ohh I saw a CG freak out. go back and watch some old 80’s movies with some of the special affects and then come back and bitch about the effects in this movie. I’m of the mind that none of it is real, if I wanted real I’d watch survivor or big brother, and even then it’s not totally real is it. I go into a movie expecting that I will see something that isn’t real, thats why the genere is called Sci//fi the Fi part stands for FICTION by the way. FYI, this isn’t pointed at what john said, just all the spoiled brats commenting here about CG and photorealistic, so what james cameron stuck his foot in his mouth. He’s too close to the project and he is like a parent talking up his kid before the big game.

    1. Tron wasn’t trying to make things look like real life, it was trying to make it look like a computer world, which it does. Not the best comparison, but point taken

      1. Ok, Maybe Tron was a bad example but I mean the backlash against CG ahas become soo overblown that people worry more about if they can tell it’s cg or not than just setting back and enjoying a story. Watching a movie requires a certain level of suspending belief for a little while to enjoy a story. Lets look at the star wars prequels as a comparison to this. Almost Every Scene Blue screen and you can tell it, there were more CG characters than human characters. I look at this avatar trailer and I feel like it has a solid story behind it, it looks CGish here and there but it’s not too over the top, there still seems to be more humans than wacky alien characters. But then again the trailer for episode one Give everybody the same feel so I guess we will see. Yes James cameron said that you couldn’t tell the difference between real and not real. Every movie has tried to claim that for the last 10 years. Next time a director says something like that I would take it with a grain of salt, that way if it happens that way your pleasantly suprised, if not you haven’t hyped it up soo much that it will never live up to your standards.

  16. I saw the 15 minute preview tonight and then saw the trailer so the first time I saw a frame of the film was on an IMAX screen in 3D. I loved the trailer. I think it really sells the film and the preview was extremely impressive with some reservations.

    Until you watch it in 3D, you can’t really appreciate what Cameron is trying to accomplish here. The film has been designed, shot and edited to create the most immersive film experience to date and it works I tells ya. I’ve not always been impressed with recent 3D movies as I find they can give off a pretty blurry effect when something is moving very fast but it’s crystal clear here.

    Zoe Saldana’s character looks fantastic. I already get a great impression of her just from this small amount of footage. Sam Worthington’s avatar looks pretty goofy though and they do look like Thundercats. There’s no getting around that. A lot of the scenes I saw were cliche to the extreme and some of the dialogue was terrible (at one point Worthington taunts a Rhino type creature with that “you don’t wann mess with me, aw yeah that’s what I’m talking about…..bitch” shtick. It’s pretty bad.

    So I’m very excited to see the film. I just hope it can give us a story and characters that we care about or all the 3D loveliness in the world isn’t going to save it.

    I will say, I don’t get how you can love film/be a geek and not be excited about a new James Cameron film. That’s just inconcievable to me but to each their own.

  17. Someone said it earlier. Have you guys seen Jurassic Park? Did the dinosaurs look real to you?

    I totally agree, Spielberg must have filmed real dinosaurs there. And that was 93.

    Look 13 years later, special effects suck.

    1. they used a lot of animatronics in Jurassic Park, as well as computer generated imagery. The CGI stuff holds up the worst (the first dinosaur they see…brontasaurus? I don’t remember the species but it doesn’t look great). The animatronics and combined animatronics/cgi still look fantastic, I agree

    2. I agree. Jurassic Park came out in 1993 and the dinosaurs (especially the T-Rex) still look lightyears better than the dinosaurs in Peter Jackson’s King Kong.

  18. 1) is this a reimagining of Ferngully?
    2) it looks decent but how will this change my life any more than Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within did? It wont.
    3) what’s the point of making cgi indistinguishable real life. technically very impressive, but why not just look at real life?

  19. The effects look pretty amazing…
    …but the blue “creatures”.. look like SHIT
    they look like something straight out of an 11 year old boy’s monster sketchbook
    but I still have hopes for the movie

  20. I think it looked ok. I enjoyed the lush and immersive “world”, but it does look CGI – the characters are trying to be photo-realistic (like the hulk), but they are still CGI. They used “some” mocap, but not enough – like all of it.
    Without mocap, characters and actions don’t have the weight they should – and it ruins the illusion. You can see that when characters jump or interact with each other in close quarters.

    I think the biggest disappointment/spoiler is the death scene of someone important that the female Avatar is crying over – could it be the lead with the spike through him, dying while she cries?

    I don’t think it is any more ground-breaking than the animation/3d elements of “UP” (which looked spectacular btw). In fact, I thought some of it looked a little like the new Star Wars series, Clone Wars, Revenge of the Sith etc.

    I think James Camerson needs to pull a really good ace story out of his pocket to help this become a hit.

  21. Jurassic Park came out in 1993 and Avatar will come out in 2009. I guess I’m now fully convinced that Steven Spielberg just created and filmed real Dinosaurs.

  22. For me it’s the very first scenes of the trailer that ruin it… when he rolls down the ramp the whole environment and the cyborgs look fake as hell. That scene when the avatar bangs against the window also seems unreal. It’s certainly not photoreal… and the forest with it’s monsters reminds me a lot on Peter Jacksons Skull Islnad….

  23. Meh, the trailer sucks.
    The aliens suck. Smurfs crossed with elfs. Baaaaad.

    I actually managed to see aliens kissing in there? How original, never saw that before. Where did they come up with that idea? A love story is what i want from a SCI-FI.

    I saw games with better graphics (yes, i saw the trailer in HD, big deal).

    This movie will suck, nothing groundbreaking here.

  24. The Avatar and the Pandorians all looked real as shit. The part where he’s looking at his hands and the part where he’s wiggling his toes and the Pandorian girl, etc. all looked amazingly REAL. Just watch the trailer again. Funny thing is, all the aliens looked fuckin REAL BUT the machines looked fake fake fake fake. THAT I was disappointed in.

    1. Also, I have complete faith in Cameron. I think this movie is going to be amazing. Cameron doesn’t know HOW to fail. In the end, who isn’t going to see this film??…yea exactly.

    1. Oh, man. I can’t help but admit that made me laugh.

      Anyway, I was very very very skeptical about this movie. I never believe it would change everything. That being said, I think the CGI is fantastic, I loved the trailer and am looking forward to it.

  25. One thing is certain I saw this movie before, the firts time it was called Enemy Mine then they did a remake, Dances with Wolves, but then they did another remake, the Last Samurai, I am sure I missed a couple.

  26. John, don’t you play warcraft? and if so, I don’t think your video game graphics bar is very high. The CGI looks good, better than a game but not quite what Cameron was describing it would be.

  27. I disgree that the trailer was awful, I rather liked it, in fact it made me feel somewhat excited for the film. I hadn’t bought into all the previous hype, so I wasn’t set up for disappoint like a lot of movie fans were. I’m excited to see a sci-fi/fantasy film on such a grand scale.

    The whole “Avatar Day” thing…yes, I agree, it is fucking stupid.

  28. Avatar Day was created precisely to keep word of mouth positive, because they knew the trailer was going to get negative feedback. Cameron didn’t even want to release a trailer originally.

  29. Oh John, I dont really know what to say because I WILL admit that I am biased.. Biased to Cameron because I have loved everything he has done. Aliens, Titanic (yeah Im a chick , deal lol), and Terminator 2 are 3 of my favorite movies of ALL time. Like, in my top 10, could watch them millions of times and never, ever get sick of them. On top of the fact that I like all the other movies he has done. I am biased enough to just think that this movie will be no different. When Cameron does something, he does it with his whole heart and energy. What other director REALLY does that? Not leaving you out of course, Im sure you did the same with your movie ;) BUT I just am one of those people that truly thinks this will be great, because, simply, everything else he has done is great.. why are people not mentioning this?

    I dont know what is worse: “Avatar Day” or August 20th being “Hate on Avatar Day” because everyone jumped on the ‘make fun of the blue people’ bandwagon. Lame. But we shall see in December!!

  30. i was referencing the obvious dislike of CG in his film as lifelike…how can people see an alien as cartoony when it’s something NO ONE as ever seen.

    just like lucas, Speilberg, zemeckis and now Cameron, there seems to be a rejection to these guys trying to do films that test that fringe of digital effects

    lets have a discussion Jeremy K instead of insulting other posters

    1. I wasn’t insulting, just standing up and saying that I like what he does still. I think the animations and models look fantastic. Of course something that does not exist, especially with the kinds of proportions being shot are not going to look real to us. No matter how real they might try to make something like that look, our subconscious mind screams “NOT REAL!” so we automatically fall back on “Oh, CG!”

      1. Edit: “Of course something that does not exist is not going to look real to us, with the kinds of proportions the aliens and other creatures have we can only assume CG.”

        (Can a little excited typing and screwed that line all up, sorry.)

  31. What can I say? The trailer didn’t really impress me all too much. Don’t get me wrong, the visual look nice and everything, the thing that’s bugging me about the trailer is the lack of plot. From watching this trailer, I have no idea what I was watching…..

    1. Dude don’t be one of those idiots that needs to no the see the whole plot in the trailer.

      Those are the worst trailers and most of the time it’s the horror films that do it so yea grate job america at only wanting to watch a film to see how they are going to die.

  32. Gotta disagree with you John. The trailer looked amazing and so did the effects. I’m a pretty hardcore gamer and I have yet to play a game that looks that damn good. I will agree that the “Avatars” do look like a video game cliche but the rest is amazing. It’s the most impressive thing I have seen in a long time (the footage from Comic Con) but I too was disappointed that I could tell the CG from the non. I thought the hype was always you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

      1. I am with you guys if you think it looked like shit your computer is shit.

        If you think it is going to be bad or overrated that is shit.

        I don’t think it is possible this is the best Director in the business.

        He always delivers Don’t know why he has from the director of Titanic other than it being the last thing he did because he has been so busy with this.

        No one has forgotten Terminator 2 or 1

    1. Overrated? Ok the movie is not even out yet. Over hyped? That I will agree with at the moment.

      Given the fact that every single Cameron film does push the limits of special effects we still have to wait until December to make final judgment or at least until a few more trailers come out.

  33. Then why hype the damn thing so much? My make statements about CGI being so real you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between what’s fake and what’s an actual CGI creation?

    I do get the feeling that’s the finished product though. Cameron just fucked himself because of his own statements then.

  34. Considering what was said about the movie I was dissapointed with the trailer. Not because it didn’t look impressive, but Cameron himself did say that you wont be able to tell the difference between what’s real, and a CGI creation.

    However who knows, the CGI is probably not even finished yet. If that’s the finished product in the trailer then i am extremely dissapoiinted, but if it’s not then we still have several months before we get to see the finished product.

    I agree with the Avatar day thing.

  35. It is pretty ridiculous, the premise of “Avatar Day”; however, that is not stopping me from going to check out the sixteen minute screening tonight. Tickets ready, can’t wait.

    I also disagree with the trailer looking awful. It’s not as lifelike as I expected from the hype, but damn it looked gorgeous. Maybe I’m just impressed as I am an aspiring 3D artist, but shit I wish I could create something that looked that beautiful.

    1. Oh, and I really hope this does amazing in the box office. I am already picturing Battle Angel Alita with these effects and my anticipation builds. Really hope he gets to go through with that project.

  36. Maybe you have a really slow connection, because the HD trailer I watched didn’t look like any video game I’ve ever played. Expectation leads to disappointment!

    I loved it!

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