Where do our real-life mountain waterfalls get water from?
Calabi, you're either trolling or confuse your capacity to piece information together with the film-maker's ability to define it.
From all I've seen the amount of background info worked into this universe is astounding. Geezers think unless the film waxes exposition designs are lacking.
You spot it: Dopes drone dofus critique to come across clever. Dopes betray ignorance. Dopes critiqued "sunshine" similarly. The film-makers easily dodge the common critiques. Reality check; Boyle, Cameron, they're dumber than the 14 year old internet homeboys who took one viewing to latch on to what a decade of pre-production failed to surface.
I dont know how it is, that criticisms against a film warrants personal insults. I dont know how it is that some people take criticism against something not connected to them in such a personal way.
For the record I did not hate the film, and yes perhaps some of of my points can be answered, for my mind some of them too conveniently. Sometimes I like to spot the flaws in things ask the questions that people rarely do, look at things with a sharp and critical eye, is that a crime.
The film has many negatives but I recognise that its positives outwiegh the negatives.
I know that even if I like things to make sense, the fact that the pre-production and research for Avatar took 15 years in the making does not instantly warrants a great movie.
Kindof like the Matrix sequels, they are grounded in existing religious/historical/legendary writings, but this alone does not make them instant great films. Fans can spend hours arguing that 'it makes sense', but that does not make the movie great by any means.
Design by commitee < great ideas
Calab point of view seems a bit extreme on certain points but I see what he is talking about. There was that small voice in my head all the way through Avatar telling me, "yeah okay A+B=C, it's all good, but where is that groundbreaking-ness I am supposed to be blown away by? Is that it? I WANT to be blown away by original ideas!!"
Of course one could argue that I shouldn't watch a movie with such expectations. But for Avatar it was unavoidable, and in a way I really wish I felt awe-inspired and mind-blown like so many were! I love that feeling while watching movies, and I am sad that this one did not do it for me despite the fantastic technical and artistic skills on display.
For instance the last time the suspension of disbelief worked for me (feeling transported in a work of unexpected sensations) was D9 to some degree, and, The Fall. I mean, those are in my opinion far superior to Avatar!
And it has nothing to do with the quality of skintone rendering, the accuracy of Mocap or the fact the the movie was shot with two cameras instead of one.
pior, I agree (edit: with your post before your most recent one!). i just think that, as a visual experience, it eclipsed whatever I may or may not have been expecting it to be as "a movie" (or a story, or whatever). Know what I mean?
Maybe I went in with different expectations to you guys, but not once did I expect Avatar to be up for any Oscars or whatever for acting, script, plot etc. I never expected that out of the movie. What I did expect was a visual feast, and that's what I got, so I'm happy.
I guess it really depends on how much hype you had been reading or internally generating before going to see it. I tend to avoid that stuff (aside from the occasional trailer which never really gives an accurate impression of any film) so I didn't have many preconceptions other than the visuals I'd seen.
Yep exactly the same here, I got there with only the trailer in mind, nothing else, no backstory. I did read through that thread and glanced over a few reviews tho, but the most striking thing was hearing coworkers coming back from the movie referring to it as "the new ground breaking act in film making, like Pulp Fiction was in its time", or guys admitting they actually cried at the end. I mean, really?
Yeah I don't understand any of that. I certainly don't think any of the plot was groundbreaking or even original in most cases. Most stuff was telegraphed well before it happened so you could tell what was going to happen later, leaving no real surprises or twists anywhere.
While I think that it's not amazing cinema for anything other than the effects and quality of polish applied to the whole thing, it's certainly far from bad. There were a couple of minor nitpicks like the naming of the main plot point elements (so generic and cheap), but I certainly don't think it was bad enough to provoke the vehemence that some people are digging into it with.
Sure, there were more than a few nitpicks, but in the end wasn't it an enjoyable experience and one of the best-looking movies to date?
It just seems like some people really enjoy blowing the bad points out of all proportion and glossing over the good stuff. Unfortunately it seems like that's the way a lot of people like to present critique these days, they seem to forget that it requires both positive and negative feedback in order to sound reliable.
Anyway since this is a graphics forum, to get this thread back on track what most amazed people about the visuals what moment stood out as really good wow moment?
For me it was a simple scene when the Navi are just standing around, and I could see the threads of the clothes those werent textures(although they probably were).
The bits where he first meets the Na'vi woman (I can't even remember her name...) and they're going around the forest at night, very lovely and memorable.
Also, Found this over at Cgtalk.
Originally Posted by ambient-whisper This is why i can't wait for there to be some sort of directors cut. some of the stuff i want to see is a street shot like mentioned in the script, his living quarters where he turns on the tv, etc. really show the bleak world that he decided to turn away from. hopefully not too much, to break the pacing of the overall movie ( because it does take a bit of time for them to get to act 2 ).
---
I'm sure I'll get an email if I can't say, but I think it's pretty small info..the street shot and the apartment were done and in along with the barfight and alley outside the bar where the corp guys originally approach him.
I thought they might keep the concept art in the art book, but I think it's been out of the edit long enough that they dropped it from there before it came out as well. That's why I'm not sure if he'd put it back into a director's cut if he likes the flow of the current opening, but it seems a natural for a Deleted Scenes type thing on the blu-ray.
Got around to seeing this a couple of nights ago and overall I really enjoyed it. I thought that as a demonstration of the possibilities of 3d cinema and virtual sets that it was very impressive. I can't help but wish that a more interesting director had got his hands on the tech, but I guess that, if nothing else, Cameron is very much a visionary when it comes to special effects. I thought that all of the mechanical design was awesome (if a little familiar) and the attention to detail in the human sets was pretty mind-blowing.
I thought that the early scenes of Jake linking with his avatar were encouraging (the scene where he stumbles out of the lab felt sinister/dangerous), but I never really connected with the Na'vi (not a huge fan of the design or the simplistic way in which they were characterised). I enjoyed the early scenes in the jungle a lot as well - there were a few shots where it felt incredibly lush and deep.
In a way, I think that my appreciation for the visuals of this movie were lessened by being so familiar with concept art from the last five years. I've seen pretty much all these spectacular ideas a bunch of times in various formats although it was great to see them fully realised. I think your average person who's not familiar with giant, floating mountains, six-legged beasties or mech suits with over-sized hunting knives will probably have their mind blown.
As for the plot, I don't really have a problem with the narrative being simplistic/familiar as long as I care about the characters and am invested in the experience. It was disappointing to see how one-dimensional the motivations of all the characters were. There were some very obvious throwbacks to characters in Aliens, but I felt that they were a lot more believable than the ones in Avatar. There was never any danger that someone might act against type and this knowledge lessened the dramatic impact of the film for me. The plot wasn't slowly revealed in a manner that allowed a sense of mystery to develop, it was spelt out for you in the most obvious of terms. Also, 'Unobtanium?' - worst name for a Macguffin yet.
So yeah, overall it works very well as a roller coaster ride. The time didn't drag for me as there was always something exciting/pretty to look at. I'm not sure that it will be a film that endures, but it will doubtlessly be a footnote in the future history of blockbuster movie-making.
About the mechanical designs... I don't know where I heard it but apparently cameron really wanted them to seem beliveable, Like something we could make. That's why i guess they look so familiar as someone else said.
And as far as i'm concerned they delivered on them. I actually like the human stuff more than the navi stuff. I really liked the design of the helicopters.
About the mechanical designs... I don't know where I heard it but apparently cameron really wanted them to seem beliveable, Like something we could make. That's why i guess they look so familiar as someone else said.
Yeah, there was a satisfying level of detail and believability to all of the man-made stuff. Whenever the camera was panning slowly over a set or vehicle, I was eating up all of the bits of tech. I particularly liked the big, fat helicopter and the shuttle.
It's kind of funny that the moral of the movie is 'Military/corporations are bad and natives/blue people are good', and yet Cameron has to be one of the biggest military fetishists in the business. I'm not complaining - he obviously knows that stuff inside out, but it's kind of weird at the same time.
If so that would be awesome to see. As in, I want to know how good of an "artist" he is. Obviously he does great movies but some painting would be cool.
PS: Aliens is my all time fav of a movie... Just realized/remembered he did it.
If so that would be awesome to see. As in, I want to know how good of an "artist" he is. Obviously he does great movies but some painting would be cool.
IIRC he did most (if not all) of the drawings shown in Jack's sketchbook in Titanic. Not sure how much pre-production or concept work he did on Avatar though. I have a feeling he's done a fair bit of sketching of the high-level designs of things before they get passed off for "final" concept art, though.
I think he has done some work as a production designer in movies too, in general he knows a ton of technical stuff about filmmaking, and is a very good artist. He shows a lot of his knowledge in that interview I linked just before.
Guillermo Del Toro is similar in that he's an accomplished artist and has covered large areas of film production from art to sets to filming, writing and direction. Quite impressive.
Yeah, Cameron's concept work is excellent. The shot in Terminator where the T-100 exoskeleton walks out of the flames came directly from a concept drawing that Cameron had done. Can't find an image of it, but you can see it in the DVD special features.
I always thought Cameron had progressed from hands-on special effects in the creature shop then moved into concepting before he went into directing.
I don't know...the visuals were fantastic. But...I think if anyone else's name had been attached to it outside of James Cameron people would be calling out the story for being so uninspired and bland. I enjoyed it, but I just wish the story had a little more meat to it rather than being so cliched and predictable. I guess I had a hard time letting go and not caring that the story was the way it was, as I didn't think of Avatar as a generic paint by numbers action movie.
A nice movie! Yeah, the na'vi were a bit too catlike in my opinion, but whatever. People mention the simplicity of the story, but I thought it was fine - the fantasy setup was thoughtful enough that a simple tale just worked. Also, it was fun. Is that a crime?
Coincidentally, though it is definitely not a very new fantasy to enter a new body, I have just started reading Jack Chalker's "Four Lords of the Diamond" series in which the main character undergoes a similar body transfer process in order to infiltrate alien worlds. And on the first one, everything is connected and can be manipulated as one via subcellular microorganisms, similar to the philosophy of an "oversoul," which is seen on the planet (moon?) in Avatar.
In real life, my oversoul is love, so I like the presence of something more literal, fantastical in my fiction. May as well turn that sort of hippie bullshit into something tangible a jaded audience can give the benefit of the doubt. (see: 'the force')
I just saw it in 3D! Going to see it in 2d tomorrow, Really nice, now that's what I call a battle. That cat lady is freaking hot too. This movie might get an oscar for the FX, really impressive. Animation was great. I wish he had directed transformers. I was thinking it be nice to see Aliens in 3d.
Saw it yesterday in 3D, it took a while for my eyes to get used to it, most of the large foreground objects were hard to focus on though. Went in without any of the hype apart from the usual `oh yeah thats a blockbuster attitude`.
I thought the film was excellent in all aspects, CG was great, I thought the whole film was believable and 2h40mins flew by very quickly. The ethical value of the film and what it was saying, and how, was very emotive. It really reminded me of Princess Mononoke, surprised no ones mentioned it. Great film 9/10.
Saw it yesterday in 3D, it took a while for my eyes to get used to it, most of the large foreground objects were hard to focus on though. Went in without any of the hype apart from the usual `oh yeah thats a blockbuster attitude`.
I thought the film was excellent in all aspects, CG was great, I thought the whole film was believable and 2h40mins flew by very quickly. The ethical value of the film and what it was saying, and how, was very emotive. It really reminded me of Princess Mononoke, surprised no ones mentioned it. Great film 9/10.
I dont think anyones said Mononoke because its only similar in the vaguest of ways. I guess you could say its the western version of Mononoke which is very sad(sad as in this is what we come up with?)
Was anyone else bothered by the sound effects of the horses? They were like the exact sounds as the raptors from Jurassic Park, after I made the connection I couldn't shake the thought for the entire film. But yea amazing movie, cant wait to see it in 2D soon.
Replies
I dont know how it is, that criticisms against a film warrants personal insults. I dont know how it is that some people take criticism against something not connected to them in such a personal way.
For the record I did not hate the film, and yes perhaps some of of my points can be answered, for my mind some of them too conveniently. Sometimes I like to spot the flaws in things ask the questions that people rarely do, look at things with a sharp and critical eye, is that a crime.
The film has many negatives but I recognise that its positives outwiegh the negatives.
A little... too conveniently?
Kindof like the Matrix sequels, they are grounded in existing religious/historical/legendary writings, but this alone does not make them instant great films. Fans can spend hours arguing that 'it makes sense', but that does not make the movie great by any means.
Design by commitee < great ideas
Calab point of view seems a bit extreme on certain points but I see what he is talking about. There was that small voice in my head all the way through Avatar telling me, "yeah okay A+B=C, it's all good, but where is that groundbreaking-ness I am supposed to be blown away by? Is that it? I WANT to be blown away by original ideas!!"
Of course one could argue that I shouldn't watch a movie with such expectations. But for Avatar it was unavoidable, and in a way I really wish I felt awe-inspired and mind-blown like so many were! I love that feeling while watching movies, and I am sad that this one did not do it for me despite the fantastic technical and artistic skills on display.
For instance the last time the suspension of disbelief worked for me (feeling transported in a work of unexpected sensations) was D9 to some degree, and, The Fall. I mean, those are in my opinion far superior to Avatar!
And it has nothing to do with the quality of skintone rendering, the accuracy of Mocap or the fact the the movie was shot with two cameras instead of one.
Thoughts?
Avatar is not SciFi, it's Fantasy in the Future! StarTrek is SciFi
Right?!
Maybe I went in with different expectations to you guys, but not once did I expect Avatar to be up for any Oscars or whatever for acting, script, plot etc. I never expected that out of the movie. What I did expect was a visual feast, and that's what I got, so I'm happy.
I guess it really depends on how much hype you had been reading or internally generating before going to see it. I tend to avoid that stuff (aside from the occasional trailer which never really gives an accurate impression of any film) so I didn't have many preconceptions other than the visuals I'd seen.
While I think that it's not amazing cinema for anything other than the effects and quality of polish applied to the whole thing, it's certainly far from bad. There were a couple of minor nitpicks like the naming of the main plot point elements (so generic and cheap), but I certainly don't think it was bad enough to provoke the vehemence that some people are digging into it with.
Sure, there were more than a few nitpicks, but in the end wasn't it an enjoyable experience and one of the best-looking movies to date?
It just seems like some people really enjoy blowing the bad points out of all proportion and glossing over the good stuff. Unfortunately it seems like that's the way a lot of people like to present critique these days, they seem to forget that it requires both positive and negative feedback in order to sound reliable.
Stars Wars is also not SciFi. Just sayin'.
For me it was a simple scene when the Navi are just standing around, and I could see the threads of the clothes those werent textures(although they probably were).
Also, Found this over at Cgtalk.
Originally Posted by ambient-whisper
This is why i can't wait for there to be some sort of directors cut. some of the stuff i want to see is a street shot like mentioned in the script, his living quarters where he turns on the tv, etc. really show the bleak world that he decided to turn away from. hopefully not too much, to break the pacing of the overall movie ( because it does take a bit of time for them to get to act 2 ).
---
I'm sure I'll get an email if I can't say, but I think it's pretty small info..the street shot and the apartment were done and in along with the barfight and alley outside the bar where the corp guys originally approach him.
I thought they might keep the concept art in the art book, but I think it's been out of the edit long enough that they dropped it from there before it came out as well. That's why I'm not sure if he'd put it back into a director's cut if he likes the flow of the current opening, but it seems a natural for a Deleted Scenes type thing on the blu-ray.
http://www.awn.com/articles/visual-effects/avatar-game-changer
awesome read, rebb
I thought that the early scenes of Jake linking with his avatar were encouraging (the scene where he stumbles out of the lab felt sinister/dangerous), but I never really connected with the Na'vi (not a huge fan of the design or the simplistic way in which they were characterised). I enjoyed the early scenes in the jungle a lot as well - there were a few shots where it felt incredibly lush and deep.
In a way, I think that my appreciation for the visuals of this movie were lessened by being so familiar with concept art from the last five years. I've seen pretty much all these spectacular ideas a bunch of times in various formats although it was great to see them fully realised. I think your average person who's not familiar with giant, floating mountains, six-legged beasties or mech suits with over-sized hunting knives will probably have their mind blown.
As for the plot, I don't really have a problem with the narrative being simplistic/familiar as long as I care about the characters and am invested in the experience. It was disappointing to see how one-dimensional the motivations of all the characters were. There were some very obvious throwbacks to characters in Aliens, but I felt that they were a lot more believable than the ones in Avatar. There was never any danger that someone might act against type and this knowledge lessened the dramatic impact of the film for me. The plot wasn't slowly revealed in a manner that allowed a sense of mystery to develop, it was spelt out for you in the most obvious of terms. Also, 'Unobtanium?' - worst name for a Macguffin yet.
So yeah, overall it works very well as a roller coaster ride. The time didn't drag for me as there was always something exciting/pretty to look at. I'm not sure that it will be a film that endures, but it will doubtlessly be a footnote in the future history of blockbuster movie-making.
Linked from rebb's article, this interview with James Cameron about the cinematography and technology behind Avatar is a pretty good read too:
http://www.awn.com/articles/3d/cameron-geeks-out-avatar
And as far as i'm concerned they delivered on them. I actually like the human stuff more than the navi stuff. I really liked the design of the helicopters.
Yeah, there was a satisfying level of detail and believability to all of the man-made stuff. Whenever the camera was panning slowly over a set or vehicle, I was eating up all of the bits of tech. I particularly liked the big, fat helicopter and the shuttle.
It's kind of funny that the moral of the movie is 'Military/corporations are bad and natives/blue people are good', and yet Cameron has to be one of the biggest military fetishists in the business. I'm not complaining - he obviously knows that stuff inside out, but it's kind of weird at the same time.
PS: Aliens is my all time fav of a movie... Just realized/remembered he did it.
IIRC he did most (if not all) of the drawings shown in Jack's sketchbook in Titanic. Not sure how much pre-production or concept work he did on Avatar though. I have a feeling he's done a fair bit of sketching of the high-level designs of things before they get passed off for "final" concept art, though.
I think he has done some work as a production designer in movies too, in general he knows a ton of technical stuff about filmmaking, and is a very good artist. He shows a lot of his knowledge in that interview I linked just before.
Guillermo Del Toro is similar in that he's an accomplished artist and has covered large areas of film production from art to sets to filming, writing and direction. Quite impressive.
I always thought Cameron had progressed from hands-on special effects in the creature shop then moved into concepting before he went into directing.
he has wild dream
I must admit, I just let myself go with the story and it worked.
I loved the first time he went into his avatar and ran outside and you could really see their scale.
Coincidentally, though it is definitely not a very new fantasy to enter a new body, I have just started reading Jack Chalker's "Four Lords of the Diamond" series in which the main character undergoes a similar body transfer process in order to infiltrate alien worlds. And on the first one, everything is connected and can be manipulated as one via subcellular microorganisms, similar to the philosophy of an "oversoul," which is seen on the planet (moon?) in Avatar.
In real life, my oversoul is love, so I like the presence of something more literal, fantastical in my fiction. May as well turn that sort of hippie bullshit into something tangible a jaded audience can give the benefit of the doubt. (see: 'the force')
It is a wet, misty place.
Thought it was gonna suck, but I give it an A+
Everything I love in a movie.
Really. Go see it.
If so, I was there too, haha
http://chud.com/articles/articles/21969/1/PROJECT-880-THE-AVATAR-THAT-ALMOST-WAS/Page1.html
CHUD's comparisson of the 1996 treatment of the script versus what was eventually released. Should be particularly interesting for those who've lamented the weak narrative and characters. I know I have.
Now THAT would have been epic!
That version would have cleared up all the problems I had with the movie and really pushed it to greatness.
Didn't said concept come from a nightmare he had?
I thought the film was excellent in all aspects, CG was great, I thought the whole film was believable and 2h40mins flew by very quickly. The ethical value of the film and what it was saying, and how, was very emotive. It really reminded me of Princess Mononoke, surprised no ones mentioned it. Great film 9/10.
I dont think anyones said Mononoke because its only similar in the vaguest of ways. I guess you could say its the western version of Mononoke which is very sad(sad as in this is what we come up with?)