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Avatar looks badass. (pg. 13)
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| Domesticated |
| quote: | Originally posted by Fledz
The "CGI is easy to do" argument is as retarded as the "EDM is easy to produce" argument. You can't be that dense. |
CGI is like side chaining and compression. It can be used well, but more often than not it is overused by idiots. |
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| Cloudburst |
| Saw it today in 3D and I was very much pleasantly surprised. It didn't suck and I quite enjoyed it actually. Also this was my first 3D movie and damn, this is awesome! ing loved it, awesome movie experience. :D |
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| narcism |
Filmmakers React to Avatar
http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/12/21...eact-to-avatar/
| quote: |
ames Cameron’s Avatar has been unleashed upon this world. We’ve run reviews from half of the /Film staff: David Chen, Brendon Connelly, Russ Fischer, and Hunter Stephenson. You might have even added your own mini-review. But you might be wondering, with all the talk of game-changing advances in the tech side of filmmaking, what do the writers and directors in Hollywood think of Avatar? Here is a round-up of quotes:
Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer: “Went to a special screening of Avatar last night where James Cameron did a Q&A after the film. I can’t tell you how much I loved the movie, or how clearly Cameron cemented himself as the world’s greatest living filmmaker. This is an incredible movie. I recommend seeing it in IMAX. So next level. So awesome. Avatar is a game changer. James Cameron wins.”
Back to the Future, Indiana Jones and Bourne series Producer Frank Marshall: “Wow!!! AVATAR is audacious and awe inspiring. It’s truly extraordinary and I would really need a blog to talk about it…”
Donnie Darko/The Box director Richard Kelly: “AVATAR was amazing. Lived up to all the hype - now must see in IMAX…”
Steven Spielberg: “The last time I came out of a movie feeling that way it was the first time I saw Star Wars.” … “The most evocative and amazing science-fiction movie since Star Wars.”
Danny DeVito: “AVATAR!!!! And the oscar goes to The King Of The World Bitches!!!”
Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz director Edgar Wright: “Avatar. One word review. Pretty-ing-stunning.”
Screenwriter John August simply called the film a “Master class”, earlier tweeting “Holy Jeebus Avatar” and later clarifying “I use Holy Jeebus in the very-much-to-the-good sense. One doesn’t cite a Jeebus in vain.”
Moon director Duncan Jones: “ I that’s my concerned face. That’s how I feel after seeing Avatar. It’s not in my top three Jim Cameron films. Am I alone here?” … “at what point in the film did you have any doubt what was going to happen next? Or were you ever surprised how it happened?” … “and did you ever wonder to yourself why they didn’t just bombard from orbit?” … “Would have appreciated the barest bit of explanation for the floating mountain islands in Avatar… Pumice stone full of helium? Something!”
Editor’s Note: Cameron did explain the floating mountains in the mention that the flux vortex causes gravity to be lower in that region.
Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore: “Go see Avatar - a brilliant movie 4 our times. Don’t worry if theater doesn’t have 3D - the 2D is awesome & it’s all about the story anyway!”
Pixar Animator Andrew Gordon: “We were blown away. Hats off to all the amazing artists that were involved with making that film. You guys really set the bar high. I was immersed in the story and characters. The animation/motion capture was superb. You could tell every frame was touched by an animator, mocap or not. I have not felt like that since I was a kid… The facial animation was so believable… Every eye dart, every movement of the brows communicated things so clearly. The world was so lush. I can’t wait to see it again! Some of the guys saw it in 2d and liked it just as much. The way to experience it in my opinion is 3d Imax. Cameron really knows how to push and pull the depth.”
Lost co-creator and Star Trek producer Damon Lindelof: “I’ll say what others won’t. Avatar hypnotized me. I’m not sure if it’s a work of genius or utter . Could it be BOTH?”
Fanboys director Kyle Newman: “AVATAR was a splendid visual feast! James Cameron gave my eyeballs a handjob”
Trick r Treat director, X2 and Superman Returns screenwriter Mike Dougherty saw the movie twice: “Avatar is even more fun if you pretend it’s Alien 5 and Ripley lived and became Dr. Augustine and somewhere on that planet is an egg…”
Kevin Smith and George Lucas have not yet seen the film, but both hope to catch it during the holiday week. |
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| Ygrene |
After having 24 hours to digest the film I'm even more enamored with it. I'm definitely going to go see it at the theatre again.
And that bit in the review that Jolz posted about the emotion is dead on. I'm still amazed at some of the emotion that came out of Neytiri. |
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| dj_alfi |
| quote: | Originally posted by mdamon7278
Well as CGI goes, it doesnt need to be in all movies, directors are just lazy and cant think of any creative ideas, chris nolan who directed batman begins and the dark knight is not a big fan of it as for the transformers, well you kinda need it |
:conf:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuation_mark |
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| Dj Minaya |
Painfully predictable storyline but visually gorgeous.
Pandora was breathtaking in IMAX/3D. |
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| astroboy |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Again, substance does not necessarily mean "think about my life/world/human condition". It takes genuine intelligence to tell a good story and develop three dimensional and human characters. |
Again it takes skill to draw a flawless circle.. but that doesn't make it anything more or less than a circle. I don't think it's an amazing story.. it's a simple story told well.
| quote: | | The end of that film packs ridiculous emotional punch: Cameron makes people cry over the demise of a killing machine that is being played by Arnie. |
Sorry must be a personal thing. I understood the plot so I new it was a sad ending.. but I felt nowhere close to tears.
| quote: | | I think it's utterly self-contradictory to agree that the films have great stories and characters told with mastery of the form and then to say we enjoy them for the action. |
I said the stories are well-told and the characters well-developed. That doesn't make them good stories or fascinating characters. It is pure mastery of form. A good painter could paint this: :) so perfectly that you couldn't help but admire the mastery. But that excellence in execution, no matter how masterful, doesn't create content that isn't there. At the end of the day it's a smiley face, it's done much better than 99% of people could do it, and it is good art, but it doesn't make you think about anything other than the medium itself. Which I suppose is thought-provoking to other painters, but not so much for laymen.. though it's still entertaining and still good art.
| quote: | | If there's no enjoyment from plot or characterisation why don't we just watch Alien Versus Predator or Terminator Salvation? They're packed to the gills with action scenes, but they suck beyond belief. |
They're poorly executed. Their equally simple story-lines are flawed and their equally uncomplicated characters are poorly developed. The painting is meant to look like this :) but it looks like this  . It's a failure of form, that not only distracts from the action but makes the whole experience more difficult to invest in, which is the whole point of story telling.
| quote: | | I'll also deal with the second paragraph here because it's the same territory: what T2's story does with the first film is again not thought-provoking in the English-essay "human condition" way, but it's thought provoking in of itself because of the intelligent way it plays off the original film. |
Again you were thinking about the film-making art - the form, the medium, the paint and brush strokes. How the thing was made, not what the thing says about anything else. Again this doesn't make it bad art.
| quote: | I'm just going on what you said in this thread:
"If I want to think or be moved I'll watch foreign cinema with little to no CGI or action." |
I still think for whatever reason a lot more thoughtful cinema comes from outside the US than within... To a great degree it's because we see everything that comes out of Hollywood and only tend to get to see selected films from Europe.. Even So I think Hollywood is better than the vast majority of Asian films.
| quote: | | Basically, this debate comes down to underlying philosophy of what makes good art. |
Not really.. I went to some pains in every one of my posts to say that I think T2 or Aliens are good films in the action/thriller genres. They certainly aren't bad art.
| quote: | | You seem to have the idea that deep or meaningful art should reflect the real world or human condition in some way, which is essentially an extension of that old Victorian idea that art should serve as moral edification. |
Nothing so normative. I'm saying some art is and some art is good by virtue of being well executed. But of the good art some makes you think about something other than the act of making art, and some doesn't. Which doesn't make one better than the other. It just means that people are misguided if they are disappointed with art of the former variety for not having elements of the latter.
| quote: | | I'm much more of the opinion that any form of art can be deep and sophisticated simply by being done very well and by achieving a strong emotional effect. I find beauty and depth simply in a well-told story, I enjoy the nuance and sophistication of a good plot executed to perfection. That's not to say I don't enjoy films that deal with the human condition, with real life and so on, I've just seen too many ultra-philosophical yet tily made art house films to believe they're any smarter than a Cameron film. |
I agree with all of that. When I originally spoke of thoughtful content.. what I meant was intellectual content that refers to something outside the act of producing the film. And just saying that someone going into a Cameron film expecting something other than an emotional buzz or an appreciation of the art of film-making, is going in with the wrong expectations. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | Originally posted by astroboy
Again it takes skill to draw a flawless circle.. but that doesn't make it anything more or less than a circle. I don't think it's an amazing story.. it's a simple story told well. |
Skill and intelligence, substance and perfection are not the same thing.
| quote: | | I said the stories are well-told and the characters well-developed. That doesn't make them good stories or fascinating characters. It is pure mastery of form. A good painter could paint this: :) so perfectly that you couldn't help but admire the mastery. But that excellence in execution, no matter how masterful, doesn't create content that isn't there. |
False analogy. The smiley already exists, so painting it perfectly is only copying something that already exists so obviously no content is going to be created. The film Aliens did not exist before Cameron made it, and by making it he quite obviously created content that wasn't previously there.
Form and function are not seperate. The craft of the thing is not seperable from its content or its meaning. There is nothing in the term "thought provoking" that says the the thoughts must be about something external to that which provokes. The films provoke thought about their own content, and it is not stupid or vacuous content, it is smart and well crafted content.
| quote: | | They're poorly executed. Their equally simple story-lines are flawed and their equally uncomplicated characters are poorly developed. The painting is meant to look like this :) but it looks like this . It's a failure of form, that not only distracts from the action but makes the whole experience more difficult to invest in, which is the whole point of story telling. |
Why would we care, and why would it distract from the action if the action is where all the entertainment lies? Look at your own quote:
"...ultimately they derive all their entertainment value from the action."
If we enjoy Aliens for the action then everything but the action could be as vacuous as the film's statement on the human condition and it should not matter. But that clearly isn't the case. It's quite obvious you're stating one thing but admitting another: that we enjoy these films for the plot, the characters and the execution and craftsmanship thereof at least as much as the action scenes. The plot and characters in these films are not just necessary scaffolds for the action scenes.
| quote: | | Again you were thinking about the film-making art - the form, the medium, the paint and brush strokes. How the thing was made, not what the thing says about anything else. Again this doesn't make it bad art. |
Neither does it mean it doesn't provoke thought or contain substance or depth. Which is essentially my point. Substance, depth, intelligence and thought are not necessarily derived by a film being one giant and elaborate signifier for some deep and philosophical signified. |
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| astroboy |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
Skill and intelligence, substance and perfection are not the same thing. |
Agreed. But you can still intelligently execute something with little underlying substance. I can get the Vienna boys choir to perform Mary Had A Little Lamb in 12 part harmony.. It would be more enjoyable, sure but it wouldn't lend the melody much more substance.
| quote: | | False analogy. The smiley already exists, so painting it perfectly is only copying something that already exists so obviously no content is going to be created. The film Aliens did not exist before Cameron made it, and by making it he quite obviously created content that wasn't previously there. |
It would make no difference to my point if it was an equally simple drawing that hadn't existed before. The point is it's a simple drawing of a simple subject, executed expertly.. You can tell the story of Humpty Dumpty expertly and make the characters consistent and ensure the storyline has no logical flaws.. That does show intelligence and the techniques you use to tell the story and how it relates to other nursery rhymes may be very interesting to think about but that doesn't add substance to the story.. it's a dude that fell off a wall.
| quote: | | Form and function are not seperate. The craft of the thing is not seperable from its content or its meaning. There is nothing in the term "thought provoking" that says the the thoughts must be about something external to that which provokes. The films provoke thought about their own content, and it is not stupid or vacuous content, it is smart and well crafted content. |
I'm not saying "thought-provoking" means that. Ofcourse any number of things may provoke thought on some level in some person, I'm just saying that that is what mean by the phrase in this context. I'm just saying there are novel about nothing much, written very beautifully, and others don't mind the prettiness but delve deeply into difficult subject matter. Both are valid forms of expression just that people shouldn't feel disappointed if either one doesn't meet the criteria of the other.
| quote: | Why would we care, and why would it distract from the action if the action is where all the entertainment lies? Look at your own quote:
"...ultimately they derive all their entertainment value from the action." |
My point in the sentence you quoted was that without the action scenes the film would not be AT ALL entertaining. Of course there are other requirements.. A somewhat believable storyline, dialogue or subtitles in a language the audience speaks is another one. Decent acting helps too.. these are universal to ANY film regardless of how it entertains, a lack of these means the film makers ed up. A lack of -ups, though admirable, does not suddenly imbue simple subject matter any depth or substance.
| quote: | | If we enjoy Aliens for the action then everything but the action could be as vacuous as the film's statement on the human condition and it should not matter. But that clearly isn't the case. It's quite obvious you're stating one thing but admitting another: that we enjoy these films for the plot, the characters and the execution and craftsmanship thereof at least as much as the action scenes. |
Not really. If you turn off the bulb in the projector then we won't enjoy the film at all. I think a half decent plot and some consistent characterisation are necessary to enjoy good suspense or action. But the latter is still a bit enjoyable even when the former is rubbish. Robo-cop was an enjoyable, ty action movie. If it had better actors and better developed characters, and the plot was tweaked it might have been better.. but without the action it would be nothing.
| quote: | | The plot and characters in these films are not just necessary scaffolds for the action scenes. |
To me they are. If they are , it's a lot harder to enjoy the action and suspense - though its still a little bit enjoyable. I liked the big robots and explosions in Salvation, even though the film itself was rubbish. If you take away the action and suspense from T2 or Aliens you're left with nothing but good quality scaffolding.
| quote: | | Neither does it mean it doesn't provoke thought or contain substance or depth. Which is essentially my point. Substance, depth, intelligence and thought are not necessarily derived by a film being one giant and elaborate signifier for some deep and philosophical signified. |
To me the substance of a story will always be in what it is about rather than the way it is told. Though I can be equally entertained by an intelligently executed, artful telling of a simplistic story with little substance, just for the appreciation of the storytelling art. There's nothing objective or universal about my opinion, it's just the way I see it. |
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| DaRoZa |
to sum up what i said in the TOTA thread - amazingly immersive with a decent story, 8/10. however the lack of memorable characters/development, tired themes and overdone fx will make it fail to stand the test of time
definitely see it in 3D if you can too. |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
| quote: | Originally posted by Halcyon+On+On
So then, as a Star Wars fan, you were completely content with the cgi additions Lucas made to his original trilogy for re-release some years ago? Yeah, that was a ing fantastic update, didn't detract from the film in the least since it was all done on late-90s Silicon Graphics machines, right? |
no, that was dumb. just as dumb as making a movie with muppets in the 21st century. |
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| Fledz |
| The CGI was great in those Star Wars movies, it was the actual design and script that made it . That's hardly the fault of CGI. |
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